The Three Musketeers (1973 film)

The Three Musketeers also known as The Three Musketeers The Queens Diamonds is a 1973 film based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas, pre. It was directed by Richard Lester and written by George MacDonald Fraser. It was originally proposed in the 1960s as a vehicle for The Beatles, whom Lester had directed in two other films. It was intended to run for three hours with intermission, but when during production, it was determined the film could not make its announced release date in that form, it was split into two, the second part becoming 1974s The Four Musketeers. In 1989, the cast and crew returned to film The Return of the Musketeers, loosely based on Dumas Twenty Years After.

Having learned swordsmanship from his father, the young country bumpkin dArtagnan arrives in Paris with dreams of becoming a kings musketeer. Unaccustomed to the city life, he makes a number of clumsy faux pas. First he finds himself insulted, knocked out and robbed by the Comte de Rochefort, an agent of Cardinal Richelieu, and once in Paris comes into conflict with three musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, each of whom challenges him to a duel for some accidental insult or embarrassment. As the first of these duels is about to begin, Jussac arrives with five additional swordsmen of Cardinal Richelieus guards. DArtagnan sides with the musketeers in the ensuing street fight and becomes their ally in opposition to the Cardinal, who wishes to increase his already considerable power over the king, Louis XIII. DArtagnan also begins an affair with his landlords wife, Constance Bonacieux, who is dressmaker to the Queen, Anne of Austria.Meanwhile the Duke of Buckingham, former lover of the Queen, turns up and asks for something in remembrance of her she gives him a necklace with twelve settings of diamonds, a gift from her husband. From the Queens treacherous lady in waiting, the Cardinal learns of the rendezvous and suggests to the nonetoobright King to throw a ball in his wifes honor, and request she wear the diamonds he gave her. The Cardinal also sends his agent Milady de Winter to England, who seduces the Duke and steals two of the necklaces diamonds. ........

Source: Wikipedia