The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge **** (1974, Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, Richard Chamberlain, Raquel Welch, Faye Dunaway, Charlton Heston, Christopher Lee) – Classic Movie Review 2305

The dashing Michael York returns as the young Musketeer D’Artagnan in the highly entertaining sequel to The Three Musketeers, the concluding 1974 half of Richard Lester’s tongue-in-cheek Alexandre Dumas adaptation, with the whole company of actors and crew at their exuberant creative peak.

D’Artagnan and the three Musketeers (Oliver Reed as Athos, Frank Finlay as Porthos, Richard Chamberlain as Aramis) aid the French royal family as the evil Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) plots against them, defending the Queen (Geraldine Chaplin) and her dressmaker from Richelieu and the wily Milady de Winter (Faye Dunaway). While Richelieu orders the Count de Rochefort (Christopher Lee) to kidnap Constance Bonancieux (Raquel Welch), Milady seeks revenge on d’Artagnan and seduces him to keep him occupied.

Though filmed simultaneously with The Three Musketeers, the tone is darker and more serious this time as the plot climaxes, and there’s more padding to fill the 107 minutes running time.

However, the film’s virtues are the same as in the original, with a marvellous production and stupendous performances. Dunaway is a particular delight as the conniving Milady and York’s final duel with Lee’s villainous Rochefort is stunning.

Again, there were no main awards for the movie, though it did win the 1976 Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Comedy. All the painstaking, imaginative behind-the-scenes work went unrewarded, though his time the costumes did gain some degree of admiration with an Oscar nomination for Best Costumes for Yvonne Blake and Ron Talsky.

It was all made as one movie in Spain, but then controversially split in half by the Salkind producing family. The producers realised that there was enough footage for two films during post production on The Three Musketeers and so created The Four Musketeers. Most of the actors were incensed that their work on the long shoot was used to make an entirely separate film. All Screen Actors Guild actors’ contracts now have what is known as the Salkind Clause that stipulates how many films are being made.

Fifteen years later, in 1989 the cast and crew returned to film The Return of the Musketeers, loosely based on Dumas’ Twenty Years After.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2305

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