Landmark Theatres’ Anniversary Classics Series returns to The Landmark on Wednesday, January 15 at 7:00pm with THE THREE MUSKETEERS, celebrating the film’s 40th Anniversary, with in person guest actor Richard Chamberlain.
CRITIC”S NOTE: Lester’s “The Three Musketeers” is a comedy classic of the 70’s. Lester’s kinetic, sometimes stop-motion antics, already established in the film he made with The Goons. “The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film” perfectly expressed the life-changing 60’s youthquake, or what came to be known as the British Invasion.
Homaging sight gags from Hollywood’s Golden Age of Silent Comedy, Lester’s energetic style helped launch the Beatles craze worldwide. (The herky-jerky gag style was aped in the US series “The Monkees”).
Actually Lester originally intended “The Three Musketeers” as a vehicle for The Beatles. He shot the sequel at the same time (unbeknownst to his cast) presaging Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of the Rings” and James Cameron’s announced triple sequel shoot. At the time it was considered a scandal.
The full bore swashbuckling romp, made without special effects, is a gas, Silly script jokes abound, and everyone in the cast, especially Oliver Reed (Athos), Raquel Welch (Constance de Bonacieux) Richard Chamberlain (Aramis), Michael York (D’Artagnan), Frank Finlay (Porthos/O’Reilly) and Christopher Lee (Rochefort) is happily munching the scenery. Watch for The Goons’ Spike Milligan as M. Bonacieux.
George MacDonald Fraser, author of the iconic “The Flashman Papers” (about a Victorian bounder, ladysman and adventurer) adapted Dumas Peres’s novel. (Lester later adapted Fraser’s “Royal Flash”, also starring Oliver Reed.) Shot by the venerable cinematographer David Watkin, with a score by Michel Legrand, this is a MUST SEE.
Director Richard Lester’s retelling of the Alexandre Dumas classic THE THREE MUSKETEERS was a critical and popular hit, followed later with the second part in The Four Musketeers, and a cast and crew 1989 reunion with the film The Return of the Musketeers. This year the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA) presents its annual Career Achievement Award to director Richard Lester, the innovative stylist who directed such ground-breaking films as “A Hard Day’s Night “and “Help!”, “The Knack”, “Petulia, How I Won The War”, “Juggernaut,” “Superman” films II and III, and this showing is also in honor his achievements. THE THREE MUSKETEERS all-star cast was led by Michael York as naive “country bumpkin” D’Artagnan, Oliver Reed as brooding, world-weary Athos, Frank Finlay as the gregarious braggart Porthos, and Richard Chamberlain as Aramis, a dandy who would become a priest if he could give up his vices. Other leading actors of the time in the cast are Charlton Heston, Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welch, Spike Milligan, Geraldine Chaplin, Christopher Lee, and Jean-Pierre Cassel.
Richard Chamberlain, who plays Aramis in the film, will be our special guest at this anniversary screening. First attracting attention as TV’s Dr. Kildare, Chamberlain went on to have a stellar career on the big screen, in the theater, and on television. His many film roles in addition to the MUSKETEERS movies include Twilight Of Honor, Petulia, The Music Lovers, The Towering Inferno, and The Last Wave. In the 1970s and 80s, Chamberlain became the king of the TV miniseries, starring in the enormously successful Centennial, Shogun, and The Thorn Birds. He attracted renewed attention with the publication of his autobiography a couple of years ago.
Tickets for THE THREE MUSKETEERS 40th Anniversary are $13, and will be on sale soon at
https://tickets.landmarktheatres.com/Ticketing.aspx?TheatreID=267
The Landmark is located at 10850 West Pico at Westwood Blvd. in West Los Angeles
Showtimes and Information: (310) 470-0492 or http://www.landmarktheatres.com