Quote Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny
Yup Basil was the man. He also was quite good as the Captain in Zorro.

Heres a guy that you wouldnt think of as a swashbuckler but did it quite well. Gene Kelly in the Three Musketeers. I hated when he spoke but the fighting scenes are quite spectacular. I was amazed to see how mant versions there are of this movie. Heres a few of the more interesting ones.



The Three Musketeers 1948.
Directed by George Sidney; adapted by Robert Ardrey; starring Gene Kelly, Van Heflin, Gig Young, Vincent Price, Lana Turner, June Allyson, Angela Lansbury, Keenan Wynn and Robert Coote. This 125-minute screenplay manages to cram an amazing percentage of the story into a single standard-length movie. The humor and Gene Kelly's D'Artagnan are somewhat broad, but the movie is very good and the scenery and costumes make full use of the Technicolor process. I particularly like Van Heflin's Athos.

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I had forgotten about Kelly's amazingly acrobatic protrayal of D'Artagnan. He also did a similar role in a movie movie with Judy Garland called a "The Pirate".

My favorite Musketeer movies are the 1973 Three Musketeers and its 1974 sequel The Four Musketeers starring Micheal York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Frank Findlay as the musketeers. The two films were shot in sequence at the same time, but then edited into two separate movies as were the Dumas novels

The actors thought they were filming one movie, but later when they found out it was made into two movies, they actully sued the production company and won for extra salaries.

Regardless, the sword fights are are gritty and realistic, the costumes lavish, and the overall look of the movie and sets seem totally authentic for the period.

Turning in great supporting roles were Christofer Lee as Rochefort, Charleton Heston as Cardinal Richelieu, Fay Dunnaway as Lady Dewinter, and Raquel Welch as Contance. (Actually one of Welch's best movie roles ever.)

I also have the two disc set of these movies, but I found out recently that there is a third movie with most of the original cast made in 1989 called Return of the Musketeers . I found it at Amazon, but only in VHS. Still for less than $10 it might be worth having to complete the set.

Cheers