The Return of the Musketeers

U.S. Premiere

Returning to the well of inspiration, Lester picks up the legend of D’Artagnan and company two decades after the events of The Four Musketeers. Now it’s the devious Cardinal Mazarin (Philippe Noiret) plotting against their beloved Queen. The retired Musketeers must reunite to save her, facing internal conflicts and trouble from Justine de Winter, daughter of their old nemesis. Christopher Lee, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Geraldine Chaplin return as, respectively, the Comte de Rochefort, Cyrano de Bergerac and Queen Anne of Austria, with new blood in the persons of C. Thomas Howell as Athos’s son Raoul and Kim Cattrall as Justine. Tragically, favorite Lester comic actor Roy Kinnear (who played D’Artagnan’s servant Planchet in all three films) was killed in an on-set accident, leading Lester to renounce directing features. But the resultant film (never released in the U.S. and currently unavailable on DVD), with its jocularity and swashbuckling action, provides a fitting valedictory to both men’s careers.