User Reviews

This was one of the more faithful adaptations of the Dumas novel.The costumes were definitely 17th century and the sets were up to par. The cast for the most part put on fine performances but most of the cast were in their early forties taken on the parts of twenty and thirty somethings.The liberties taken with the novel did not exactly hurt the story.This version is one of the few that has included the Lord de Winter character.The parts that stray from the novel is the D'Artagnan at the beginning of the story in the town of Meung in the movie has Milady de Winter in the carriage with Constance as her prisoner meeting Rochefort.Constance drops a handkerchief trying to get help and D'Artagnan thinks that the handkerchief belongs to Milady de Winter and that she is interested in him since the carriage incident at Meung.He pursues her becomes involved with her and then finds out that Constance was the one who dropped the handkerchief and after meeting Constance falls in love with her.Milady is definitely Rochefort's accomplice she is also involved in a second kidnapping of Constance.D'Artagnan towards the end of the film kills Rochefort.Milady being an accomplice of Rochefort and abductor of Constance is more than likely borrowed from the 1929 sequel to the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks silent Three Musketeers.This 1945 adaptation made Milady even more villainous.What I greatly appreciated about this version is how faithful to most of the story it is:Milady tries to get D'Artagnan to kill Lord de Winter.Athos who in most recent movie versions is still in love with his ex-wife Milady de Winter in this version like the book he hates her.Milady seduces Felton who kills Buckingham.Milady poisons Constance at the convent.Lord de Winter joins the Musketeers on the hunting down of his sister-in-law Milady de Winter after Constance's murder plus that Milady is responsible for John Felton killing the Duke of Buckingham and also the poison murder of his brother.The Executioner of Lille like in the novel reveals how he knows Milady de Winter and that he was responsible for branding her as a criminal because he also had to brand his brother her accomplice and his reasons for being more than willing to execute her-She destroyed his only brother and led him away from the priesthood to a life of crime and then he committed suicide when she left him for the Count de la Fere aka Athos.Kudos to Argentina/Uruguay for making this very close to faithful adaptation of the novel.This version has been mistakenly described as a comedy by many different sources.It certainly is not.This version has been mistaken with the Mexican Cantinflas version which is three years older than this.This version is a gem and anyone who loves true adaptations or full length adaptations needs to add this to their library.Armando Bo and Inda Ledesma are in their early thirties but they can pass for the young lovers D'Artagnan and Constance which is a lot more than can be said for the some of the other cast members.Roberto Airaldi's Athos the Count de le Fere had the noble bearing of Athos down pat.Iris Marga's Milady was well acted but she was unfortunately one of the less attractive actresses to play Milady de Winter.By the way another actress was cast in the part of Milady de Winter and had to back out.Iris Marga was second choice for the part.Like the 1936 MGM Romeo and Juliet most of the cast of this version were too old for their parts but the acting made up for that.Other faithful or near faithful versions to the novel are the French 1922 silent and 1933 talkie.The 1948 MGM,The 1954 and the1966 BBC version was so good it spawned to sequels that also followed the literary sequels.The 1959,1961 2 part adaptation 1969 3 part,1984 French/Italian tv productions.The Richard Lester UK/Panama productions that started in the 1970'sand ended in a1988 sequel.The Russian versions of 1978 which also had sequels that followed and 2013/2014 10 part series that was also released as an edited movie theatrically.The 1999 USA made for video stage play.The Spanish miniseries of the early 1970's with Sancho Gracia.All the above are worth the time to watch.I gave this Argentinian/Uruguayan version an 8 because of faithfulness to the novel.This was a long lost hidden gem.