The Further Adventures of the Musketeers (1967) User Reviews

The first English remake of Alexandre Dumas "The Twenty Years After"

[FromBookstoFilm · 9/10 · 24 December 2007]

Someone mistakenly has said Alexandre Dumas' Twenty Years After had been only made once as the Return of the Musketeers in 1989-WRONG! The French did two movie versions in the 1920's and 1930's. The Italians once in the 1960's unfortunately it wasn't faithful to the story. The Russians once and it was a faithful and excellent version. This fine 1967 series is a sequel to the fine faithful BBC 1966 version of The Three Musketeers. Has most of the same cast as 1966 Three Musketeers except that Joss Ackland took over for Jeremy Brett as D'Artagnan. Michael Gothard does an excellent job as Mordaunt nee John de Winter the vengeful son of Milady de Winter. YES,MILADY DE WINTER HAD A SON not a daughter Justine de Winter like the sex change Richard Lester gave the character in his adaptation of the Twenty Years After known as the Return of the Musketeers 1989 the sequel to his Three and Four Musketeer films of the 1970's.The Return of the Musketeers and The Three and Four Musketeers were also excellent films. Michael Gothard always is cast as a villain or a fool in movies.Joss Akland I don't think could ever give a bad performance.Fine performances by both actors.As far as filmizations of the Twenty Years After the three best in my book are this version which is number 1, 2nd the Russian version which had the same cast as it's Russian 1978 Three Musketeers and 3rd Richard Lester's 1989 version which also had the same cast as his Three and Four Musketeers. Faithful this version sure is. Hopefully BBC will find this and rerelease it on DVD. A little Musketeer trivia. Michael Gothard who plays Mordaunt played Milady de Winter's(Faye Dunaway)fanatical Protestant lover John Felton the assassin of the Duke of Buckingham in Richard Lester's The Four Musketeers and Joss Ackland who played D'Artagnan in this version played D'Artagnan's father in Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers.99% of the time you can count on the BBC to put out faithful adaptations of the classics and this definitely is one of them!

First class serialisation

[mkb-8 · 24 April 2006]

This TV version of the Dumas novels was made during the golden age of the BBC Sunday teatime classic serial and I still have fond memories of it forty years later. Like its predecessor, 'The Three Musketeers', the whole thing was played straight and not as a jokey camp fest like so many of the movie versions. The versatile Joss Ackland was particularly outstanding.

It is actually a very good story, and if played straight with outstanding actors as was the case in this BBC version, can make for thrilling and at times moving drama. Let's hope that the original tapes are still lodged safely in the BBC vaults and have not been wiped, since this is a true classic.