The three musketeers finally retire to the background and function merely as an appreciative audience as this fantastic peasant lad from Gascony deliciously combats with finesse and, at times, with humor—always in control of the situation. The entire scene functions as a complete cinematic unit.
In contrast, the Lester version is filmed as though it were a back street brawl, with no continuity of camera work; each short, jerky shot has little or no relation to the next short, jerky shot. Instead of long, lyric passages of classic dueling, Lester has his swordsmen doing karate chops, kicking, gouging, jumping, bludgeoning with rakes and poles, and other such related nonsense. There is absolutely no sense of d’Artagnan’s being a superior swordsman.
Scene 6. After Treville reprimands the four men and they are summoned to an audience with the king, the scene of them marching through the elegant throne room and up to the king is a classic scene which is often used or recreated for advertising purposes. Curiously, this entire scene is deleted from the Lester film and replaced with odd doings of street people and gratuitous acrobats, circus-like activities, and other visual diversions inserted to create a sense of “atmosphere.”
From this point on, the Sidney film varies only slightly from the novel. However, note that Constance Bonacieux becomes Monsieur Bonacieux’s adopted daughter; thus the love affair between her and d’Artagnan was more acceptable to the moral code of the late’40s than d’Artagnan’s having an affair with his landlord’s wife. In the Lester movie, the young and beautiful Constance is played by an aging but voluptuous Raquel Welch, who is immediately attracted to d’Artagnan; the two are in bed within minutes of meeting one another.
From this point on in the Lester film, there is little similarity to Dumas’s novel. The Sidney film, however, continues to follow Dumas’s novel almost scene for scene. Admittedly, there are some “adjustments”—such as placing Milady under the guard of Constance, instead of introducing a new character (John Felton in the novel), and later, there is a serious divergence from the novel when Milady goes to her death proud and defiant, rather than pleading and conniving, as she does in the novel.
In conclusion, the 1949 movie is a very close rendering of Dumas’s literary masterpiece, whereas the 1974 movie uses the basic plotline of the novel, but creates an entirely different sort of finished product.
