The Return of the Musketeers
Tags: cult, action, murder, romantic, historical fiction

Plot synopsis:
Twenty years after the events of The Four Musketeers, Cardinal Mazarin has imprisoned the Duke of Beaufort. Mazarin hires d'Artagnan to bring together Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, to work for him. Porthos accepts, but Athos and Aramis decline. By this time, Athos has a son named Raoul.
Milady de Winter's daughter, Justine, questions the headsman that the musketeers hired to kill her mother. After finding out from the headsman that "Comte de la Fere" hired him, she kills the headsman. Raoul happens upon the aftermath of this event and chases after Justine, who is disguised as a priest. After a swordfight, when he discovers who she really is and her plan, Raoul leaves and tells d'Artagnan, Porthos, and Athos that Justine wants to kill them.
Comte de Rochefort helps Beaufort escape from his prison, and he is subsequently arrested by Mazarin. Mazarin sends d'Artagnan and Porthos after Beaufort, but Beaufort escapes them due to interference from Athos and Aramis, who are working for Beaufort. This starts a fight amongst the Musketeers, in which d'Artagnan slices Aramis' hand. Aramis breaks his sword and rides away. d'Artagnan and Porthos are fired by Mazarin for not catching Beaufort.
Rochefort goes into hiding until he finds Justine, and tells her the names of d'Artagnan, Porthos, and Aramis, revealing to her that the Comte de la Fere is Athos.
King Charles I of England is to be executed, so Queen Anne of Austria sends d'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Raoul to rescue him. They attempt a rescue by knocking out the headsman, but Justine takes his place and executes Charles.
The musketeers have several encounters with Justine: in one, Raoul's true allegiance is revealed to her; in another, Justine and Rochefort attempt to kill the Musketeers by blowing up their ship (the Musketeers escape and Rochefort is killed by his own bomb).
Justine attempts to kill King Louis XIV, but is stopped by the Musketeers, and their battle concludes with Justine jumping out of the window into the water. Aramis rejoins the musketeers, and they force Mazarin to sign several forms in favour of them, including making Porthos a baron, Aramis a bishop, and Raoul being commissioned into the Guards. The film ends with the Musketeers riding together again.

Review: Unfortunately, the tragic accident suffered by Roy Kinnear casts a palor over the ending.The original cast is as good now as in the original films.
C. Thomas Howell is completely forgettable as Athos' son, Raoul.Part of the problem with this film is that Mazarin never seems as formidable as Richelieu and Cattrall is a poor caricature of Faye Dunaway.
All-in-all, the film is fine entertainment for a quiet evening or a rainy weekend.One note of trivia: Philippe Noiret would later play D'Artagnan in Bertrand Tavernier's Revenge of the Musketeers..
It's nice to see many of the original cast members back for this third "Musketeers" movie, even though 15 years has elapsed since the second film.
That name is Justine de Winter, daughter of Milady de Winter (the female villain that Faye Dunaway played in the earlier films, who was eventually captured and beheaded by the musketeers).
With Justine out for revenge, D'Artagnan has to track down his old friends - some of whom are Beaufort supporters and therefore the very people he should be fighting against - and together they ride again into various adventures and dangers.There are certainly some problems with The Return Of The Musketeers, but none of them undermine the film as much as its detractors would have us believe.
Secondly, Richard Chamberlain's character, the musketeer Aramis, is not in the story much and the scripters have tried to compensate for his absence by introducing the character of Raoul, son of Athos.
Many reviewers have already commented that this was Roy Kinnear's last film (he died following a horse-riding accident on the set), so I won't add too much to what has already been said.
For the innumerable times adapted , it's filmed in the greatest splendor , the complete romance , the historical characters, the full novel just as Alexandre Dumas write it .
This delightful adaptation based on Alexandro Dumas classic novel starts with a mature D'Artagnan who attempts to reunite the remaining Musketeers , the three two-fisted Musketeers , Athos (deliciously performed by Oliver Reed), Porthos(Frank Finlay) and Aramis (Richard Chamberlain) .
DÁrtagnan invites to unite them in their objective to struggle against guards of astute Cardinal Mazarin (Philippe Noiret), his deputy Rochefort ( Christopher Lee ), and a devious secret agent , the Milady De Winter's daughter ( Kim Cattrall ) who such as his mother is lovely as a jewel, deadly as a dagger the wickedest woman in all Christendom , she seeks vengeance against the Musketeers.
Comic relief by Roy Kinnear who unfortunately died in an equestrian accident , falling down horse during the production and the film is dedicated at the same .
As the marvelous main actors are completed by stellar cast full of classical and veteran players as Roy Kinnear as unforgettable Planchet ,Philippe Noiret , Christopher Lee , Geraldine Chaplin ,Billy Connolly , Jean Pierre Cassel as Cyrano De Bergerac and several others.
Lush production design is well reflected on the luxurious interiors and exteriors mostly filmed at Madrid and Toledo .This classy story about the famous ¨Musketeers ¨ is subsequently remade on several versions , firstly take on about this classic is the following : 1921 silent version by Fred Niblo with Douglas Fairbanks and going on the 1935 adaptation by Rowland V Lee with Walter Abel and Paul Lukas ; 1973 amusing version by Richard Lester with Michael York, Oliver Reed and Raquel Welch ; 1993 modern adaptation by Stephen Herek with Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Oliver Platt and Chris O'Donnell, and 2001 rendition by Peter Hyams with Justin Chambers, Mena Suvari and Tim Roth , among others.
This fun instalment of the Musketeers series (fifteen years after 'The Four Musketeers' was released) reunites the original four cast members (Michael York still looking impossibly young as D'Artagnan, now in the King's army; Oliver Reed on good form as Athos, now with a weedy son Raoul (C Thomas Howell) who really doesn't need to be there; Frank Finlay in a very silly wig as Porthos and still accident prone; and Richard Chamberlain as Aramis, now an Abbe and the Queen's confessor, but ready (eventually) to join in the swordsplay).Kim Cattrall appears as Justine de Winter, daughter of Milady, and is completely inadequate.
Making a return are Christopher Lee as Rochefort, and Roy Kinnear (who died during filming) as long-suffering servant Planchet; and fine additions to the cast include Alan Howard as Oliver Cromwell, Bill Paterson as Charles I, Jean-Pierre Cassell as Cyrano de Bergerac (an idiot who thinks geese will help him fly in a balloon to the moon) and Philippe Noiret as Mazarin.Is it as good as the 1970s instalments, also directed by Lester?
The sword fights are there (and also an hilarious scene involving trapdoors in the rooms of Justine de Winter); there's the usual set of stunts and slapstick; and there's the darker sections - Athos remembering Milady, the execution of Charles I, the young French king imprisoned in the Tower, the gunpowder-laden ship.
For me the cast member who is most memorable (as in the earlier films) is Oliver Reed, in a perfect part which gives him chance to get lots of references to alcohol in there (in one bit son Raoul offers him tea 'a new infusion', which Athos sprays out after a swig when being told there's no alcohol in it!), has him stuck in a castle window, and plummeting into a water tank from the punctured balloon.
The film does have its good points, such as the beautiful production values, some witty jokes about the ravages of time and a good cast Oliver Reed and Christopher Lee being the standouts.
To be honest, though I have not watched them in ages, I am not quite as much a fan of Richard Lester's revisionist version(s) of Alexandre Dumas' swashbuckling saga as I would like (being more partial to the 1948 version which is the one I grew up with); with this in mind, I did not actively seek out to catch up with the belated third entry, neither when it opened in local theaters nor on its sporadic Italian TV appearances!
That said, having purchased Anchor Bay's SE DVD set of the 1973/4 adaptations regardless, I also made it a point to finally acquire the film under reviewand, though I have been wanting to check it out for the longest time, only got to it now jointly in tribute to James Whale (by way of his definitive 1939 version of THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK) and as part of my current Easter epic marathon!
To cut a long story short, I quite enjoyed the film (though the comedy is still very much frenzied and hit-and-miss in the traditional Lester style) – which had been thoroughly ignored at the time, another reason I was in no special hurry to watch it.
Of course, Lester re-acquired the services of most of the principals save, obviously, for the ones who had expired or been replaced (Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston respectively: amusingly, when the latter wished there was some way to bring Cardinal Richelieu back, the director obliged by having a portrait of him in character hung up in his replacement Mazarin's office throughout the film and which he later donated to the actor!).
Thomas Howell as the adopted son of Oliver Reed's Athos (the sole link to Dumas' "Le Vicomte De Bragellone" aka "The Man In The Iron Mask" – whereas the rest is an adaptation of "Twenty Years After", already solidly brought to the screen in 1952 as AT SWORD'S POINT); and Kim Cattrall as the true villainess of the piece (inevitably, we had to have one here as well), memorably introduced as an axe-wielding monk(!) catching up with the executioner who had beheaded her mother, Milady De Winter – born out of the latter's relationship with Rochefort (played once again by Christopher Lee, despite his vociferous protests over the years of having been paid for the previous outings on a two-films-for-the-price-of-one basis!) and whom she detests and humiliates for having abandoned her.The plot finds Michael York's D'Artagnan still struggling for a court position, Oliver Reed's Athos typically raising hell under the influence (as befits the actor who passed away in Malta 10 years later during the filming of GLADIATOR {2000} following yet another massive binge in a local bar that was subsequently renamed "Ollie's Pub"!!) – however, whenever he chooses to flex his serious acting muscles, he is as commanding as any thespian, Frank Finlay as an inertly-wealthy Porthos, while Richard Chamberlain's Aramis is now confessor to Chaplin and, though relegated to a "Special Appearance" credit, he does get a reasonably meaty role as a womanizing cleric!
Also on hand is Roy Kinnear as an amiably impish Planchet: unfortunately, he would himself die when thrown off a horse while shooting this, an unfortunate accident which led the director to give up film-making altogether (without wishing to pass judgment on him, this decision is in stark contrast to John Landis' essentially unruffled reaction at the even more tragic death of Vic Morrow while TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE {1983} was being made!).Anyway, the narrative here incorporates the taking of power from British King Charles I (Chaplin's character's brother) by Oliver Cromwell – in cahoots with Mazarin and Justine De Winter!
Richard Lester attempts to recreate the magic of his '70s "Musketeer" films, and for the most part he succeeds, but "The Return of the Musketeers" is a bit too episodic at times and occasionally feels rushed, particularly at the end.
Fast forward ten to fifteen years after that, and I'm channel surfing one evening when I come across some kind of period piece that happens to looks like a musketeer film on WTBS.And it is.
As you probably already know comedic actor Roy Kinnear's life was tragically cut short working on this production, and the film is appropriately dedicated to him.I guess the one thing that really stands out in this film is the fact that it's a relatively low budget affair.
You can tell that in spite of this being an expensive production that the money just wasn't there to do proper Richard Lester justice for this third installment of the musketeer movies.All in all I enjoyed it.
First of all, Richard Chamberlain (As Aramis)is not in the film all that much, the late Oliver Reed (As Athos)looks like he doesn't want to be there, and Frank Finlay (As Porthos)seems to be along for the ride.
There was only one moment when the film carried any serious depth for me, and that was in the confrontation between Aramis and D'Artagnan; although completely without basis in the book, that was the only episode that carried any hint of the bitterness of genuine feeling between the four reflected in the torn loyalties of the original.As for the rest, it was played for parody, pure and simple.
It might as well have been entitled "Return of the Son of the Bride of the Musketeers from 20,000 Fathoms", given its grievous case of 'sequel-itis'.Rochefort is gratuitously re-introduced, despite the fact that he performs no plot function at all and trails around like a mangy dog, to be pitied even by Oliver Cromwell.
We have overlong, over-slapstick fight scenes, epitomised perhaps by the opening sequence, where even Roy Kinnear's sad death during subsequent filming cannot excuse the tedium of his character's would-be comic antics.
At times, alas, the film is little short of a travesty.If you loved the originals -- this is one of the cases where I'd actively advise against watching the reprise, for the sake of sparing the embarrassment of the actors involved, if for nothing else.
Watch the French-made "D'Artagnan's Daughter"(1994) for next-generation comedy; or, if you want to see Michael York play an aging D'Artagnan with genuine boisterous charm, try the harmless bit of fluff that was the 'mini-series' "La Femme Musketeer" of 2004..
the iron mask) was never filmed ,because this one was not very commercially successful.Roughly based on "Vingt Ans Après" ,"the return" was made sixteen years later ,with the same actors (Faye Dunaway ,Raquel Welch and Charlton Heston are not present ,their characters being all dead).Also Louis the Thirteenth is dead,Jean-Pierre Cassel who played his role,returns as Cyrano De Bergerac who comes at the most awkward moment.The historical background is thin,although dealing with "La Fronde" ,a noble rebellion,and Mazarin's struggle to maintain the absolute monarchy ;and in spite of the musketeers,he was successful ,for the Sun King's reign only began with his death in 1661 ,when he was already 23.Unlike in the book,it's a daughter (Justine De Winter) and not a son who wants to avenge her mother Milady.It's first surprising but becomes repetitive in the long run.It lacks some imagination:why not an affair with Raoul for instance?The first movie of the saga remains the most successful:in this one,time has taken its toll,and what could have been another magnificent "Robin and Marion" ,a journey through the past tinged with nostalgia ,remains here a moderately entertaining swashbuckler..
Having greatly enjoyed Richard Lester's first two "Musketeer" movies, I was looking forward to seeing this one when it was finally released.
I know Oliver Reed's Athos is supposed to be a melancholy man, but in this film he seems continually on the verge of breaking into tears; Richard Chamberlain is too old to play the wastrelly ladies' man/religious as he did so enjoyably in the earlier movies, and Michael York seems to be in a perpetual pout.
With a script and story just as good as the original films in the series, The Return of the Musketeers is only let down by the cheap humour made at the expense of the physical inabilities of the now aged musketeers.However, even this is done so that you cannot help laughing at it, and so leaves us with a little comic jewel of a film.In the UK this film has remained quite high profile as it marked the death of Roy Kinnear, one of Britain's best and most beloved comic character actors of all time, who died while falling off his horse during the filming of one of the horse-riding scenes, and his families pursuit of compensation.Kinnear's death does leave the rest of the cast visibly downcast on screen and brings down the end of the movie with an over all somber mood as Kinnear's scenes are filled with a mixture of doubles and audio dubbing.However, this is still a very funny movie which is ideal for a late night of non-thinking entertainment..
In the early 70's many of the same actors made one excellent and a second really good but not quite excellent fun action film based on Dumas' classic stories with a small amount of fairly inaccurate history thrown in.
It is intended as a parody of the first two films--a lovely idea in concept--but it would work as a 15 minute skit, not a feature.Part of why it worked was the quality of the stars with the three central characters (not in order of billing) (of the film) D'Artagnon, Cardinal Richelieu, and Lady De Winter being played by Michael York, Charleton Heston and Faye Dunaway.
Also missing from this cast is Raquel Welch, playing the dumb, funny gorgeous sexpot (against Dunaway's scary, super-intelligent sociopathic sexpot).Given the quality of the original two films, and how mediocre the script for this is, I am surprised the rest of the major players returned: Christopher Lee (great in all), Oliver Reed (playing a drunk--big surprise), Geraldine Chaplin (her role is larger and Much more poorly written--she is not a comedienne), and Richard Chamberlain.
On September 18, 1988, during the filming in Toledo, at the great Puente de Alcántara, the actor Roy Kinnear fell from his saddle.
The movie "The Revenge of the Musketeers" was a pleasant surprise since I had read the book,"Twenty Years After" by Dumas.
The beauty of the film "The Revenge of the Musketeers" is in keeping the spirit of the first two movies, staying close to the original books by Dumas(instead of the kiddie version),the third movie was made with the original actors almost Twenty Years After the first was produced!
The film should have spent more time on Charles I's execution and how the musketeers fight to save him because we also see a pathetic attempt whereas in the book, they really tried and almost succeeded in saving Charles Ist. I miss Mordaunt so much.
It's still the same crew, and the same, definitive, cast - apart from the characters who aren't with us anymore - although Jean-Pierre Cassel does make a cameo appearance as Cyrano de Bergerac!One thing that nobody else has done on here is compare it to the book.
This doesn't happen in the book - although I did hear somewhere on here that Richard Chamberlain expressed a lack of interest in this film, possibly after Roy Kinnear was killed.
The best part of the film is the hilarious opening scene in which Kinnear tries to get his lunch, but it's all downhill from there.Kim Cattrall is a poor shoe-in for villainess although Christopher Lee is a reliable villain as always.
Richard Lester, who had cast Kinnear in numerous films before this one, was so upset by his death that he retired from filmmaking.
Prior to Kinnear's death, I imagine that the plan was for Planchet to accompany D'Artagnan, Athos and Porthos to England, where Aramis would have reunited with them.Leaving the real life tragedy aside for a moment, this is a hugely enjoyable film.
Kinnear, Chamberlain, Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Michael York, Frank Finlay and Geraldine Chaplin all reprise their roles from the first two films and are joined by Kim Cattrall, Philippe Noiret, Alan Howard and Bill Paterson (admittedly in a very small role as Charles I).
Of the newcomers, Kim Cattrall, whose work I always enjoy, was the best as Justine de Winter with Noiret as Cardinal Mazarin in a close second.
Jean-Pierre Cassel, who played the by now dead Louis XIII in the original films, has a lovely cameo as Cyrano de Bergerac.