The Three Musketeers (1948)

Based on the novel "Les trois mousquetaires" (1st ed. 1844) by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet.

In 1625, a poor man from Gascogne travels to Paris intending to become a musketeer of king Louis XIII. He gets involves in the rivalry between the king and his prime-minister (actually the term is wrong, but that is what he is, functionally speaking, at least in the film), cardinal Richelieu. The bone of contention is war with England, which the prime-minister wants and the king does not (apparently).

My second viewing. This exceedingly lavish Hollywood production starts out gay and choreographic and grows more melodramatic as it proceeds. The plot is not to be taken seriously and has an emphasis on subaltern people taking the lead of the action (I guess this resonates with the petit-bourgeois public). The good and evil political axes are entirely arbitrary from a modern point-of-view, and are of course reinforced with characters' individual traits that settle the matter, so to speak. Taking as a reference the novel's summary on Wikipedia, the murder of Constance is different in the film and novel versions. In the novel, Constance is not in the same premises where De Winter is kept prisoner; she is killed later in the story, when both are interned in a convent.

Rating: 51 (up from 47)