Over the past few nights, we have watched Richard Lester's 1970's Musketeer movies. Hadn't seen any of them in ages, and other than myself, no one had seen "The Return of the Musketeers"(1989). That one was no great loss. The stars must have been in need of a paycheck to agree to it; very disappointing, especially in that George Macdonald Fraser, who wrote the scripts for the first two movies, also scripted this one. It was not worth the time we spent watching it. Taking place 20 years later, the main part of the story had Kim Cattrall playing a villainess who was the love child of Milady de Winter and Rochefort out for revenge on all the principals surviving the previous two pictures. It's also sad to note that Roy Kinnear (d'Artagnan's bumbling servant) died in an accident while making this film. None of my family was terribly impressed with this picture; mainly it satisfied their curiosity.

However, the two films previous, "The Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers" are two of my all-time favorites. Love the story, the script, the cast, the direction, the humor, the drama and the action. Michael York, Richard Chamberlain, Oliver Reed, and Frank Finlay are so much fun as the musketeers, Faye Dunaway and Raquel Welch are excellent (love the fight over the Queen's diamonds), and Charlton Heston is pure menace as Richelieu. The whole cast is great to watch, with much physical comedy, witty repartee, slapstick humor, making for a swashbuckling good time. I've seen the older versions and the newer (Disney) version, and they just can't measure up to Lester's versions. Worth watching again and again and again, as they are always entertaining.