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DVD The 5th Musketeer
An appealing cast of film veterans makes this 1977 action-adventure version of Alexandre Dumas's The Man In the Iron Mask particularly watchable. Lloyd Bridges co-stars as swordsman Aramis, one of several Musketeer tutors of young and brave Phillippe (Beau Bridges, Lloyd's son), who doesn't know he's the identical twin brother of King Louis XIV. Captured by Louis, his features briefly disguised by an uncomfortable iron mask, Phillippe is forced to play his villainous sibling in an assassination scenario designed to fool France into believing its mad emperor is dead. Phillippe, however, turns the tables, and with the aid of Aramis, Athos (Jose Ferrer), Porthos (Alan Hale Jr.), and D'Artagnan (Cornel Wilde), makes a bold attempt to take his country's destiny in hand. Also on view are Rex Harrison, Ursula Andress, and Olivia DeHavilland; the star wattage and attractive settings compensate somewhat for director Ken Annakin's stiff and unimaginative direction. --Tom Keogh
I have a copy of the full version of this movie on VHS and was looking forward to owning a copy on DVD. After receiving a copy of the DVD, I noticed the PG rating. To my dismay, I found that they had censored the 'juicy' parts of the movie. The 'juicy' parts actually portrayed the relationships between the King and his mistress and that between the future Queen and the King's twin brother. I did not find the 'juicy' parts to be offensive in any way but rather it contributed to the storyline as a whole. For censoring the movie, I give it 3 stars. However, I must commend the Studio for the quality of the transfer. The video quality is relatively good compared to the tape version but the audio quality in some parts of the DVD could be improved. I hope that the Studio will produce the full version in due course.
Sensored version
I like the movie but not the version offered by amazon.com. I watched the unrated version in Europe and it was much nicer and made sence. Here I watch a tape and get upset how conversations are cut in the middle just because of the nudity of Silvia Kristel or Ursula Anders. For example, when Louise de La Valliere comes to join the king in bed she gets undressed while they talk. End of the conversation is cut... Believe me, uncut version is not something restricted, it is not even close to be "too bad to show", I do not understand why it is so sensored here. I wish there were an original version to buy.
Old stars play old heroes
This is a fun little diversion for swashbuckling fans. D'Artagnan (Cornell Wilde), Aramis (Lloyd Bridges), Athos (Jose Ferrer), and Porthos (Alan Hale Jr.), prove they still have what it takes to be heroes as King Louis XIV (Beau Bridges) tries to eliminate his twin brother (Beau Bridges) and marry the infanta of Spain. The sword work is not quite as sharp as good Bob Anderson work or as excitingly realistic as William Hobbes, but there is plenty of it in a variety of creative scenarios. It is fun to watch the old actors Ferrer and Bridges work together as Hale tries to keep up and Wilde holds himself aloof. Ursula Andress adds camp appeal as the king's lover. Olivia de Havilland adds credibility in a cameo as the King's mother. There is also a good deal of political intrigue and mistaken identity to keep the story moving along.
Trivia: The role of Athos, here played by Jose Ferrer, is played in the recent "Man in the Iron Mask" by John Malkavich. There is another pair of historical sword-fighting movies set in France where these two actors play the same character. In "Joan of Arc" with Ingrid Bergman, Ferrer plays the Dauphin. The same role was played by Malkavich in "The Messenger: the story of Joan of Ark" with Milla Jovovich.
There's a conspiracy afoot in France that has inadvertantly spread from the Royal Court of the King into the surrounding countryside, bringing death and destruction to a distant convent. One of the residence of this religious community happens to be Eloise (Sophie Marceau), the daughter of the famous musketeer D'Artagan.
After the murder of the Reverend Mother, Eloise leaves the convent, returning to Paris to find her Father (Philippe Noiret) in the hope of convincing him to use his fighting skills to bring the culprits to justice. As you might have guessed, this turns out to be a job that will require more than one musketeer. Soon D'Artagan and Eloise are joined by Porthos (Raoul Billerey), Aramis (Sami Frey) and Athos... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sophie Marceau - Philippe Noiret Director(s): Bertrand Tavernier - Riccardo Freda DVD Release Date: Released the 13 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose is a flawed attempt to adapt Umberto Eco's highly convoluted medieval bestseller for the screen, necessarily excising much of the esoterica that made the book so compelling. Still, what's left is a riveting whodunit set in a grimly and grimily realistic 14th-century Benedictine monastery populated by a parade of grotesque characters, all of whom spend their time lurking in dark places or scuttling, half-unseen, in the omnipresent gloom. A series of mysterious and gruesome deaths are somehow tied up with the unwelcome attention of the Inquisition, sent to root out suspected heretical behavior among the monastic scribes whose lives are dedicated to transcribing ancient manuscripts for their famous library, access to which is prevented by an... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Sean Connery - Christian Slater Director(s): Jean-Jacques Annaud DVD Release Date: Released the 06 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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I too saw this film on the Hallmark Channel. They did a decent job of updating the Dumas classic. I must qualify my review ;as the standard which almost all serious Dumas film fans is the Richard Lester duo: The three and four musketeers of the early 70's. Also I have been a student of rapier/dagger swordplay for about 6 years. Anyway, back to the film. I found it entertaining, and the sword-work was'nt bad. I would have liked more dagger play, and some good ole cloak work as well. Back to the story, is was somewhat refreshing to see both the 4 musketeers and their children battle the evil forces of Cardinal Mazarin. The bad guys were as usual some of the more interesting characters. My main beef was the shiny leather get-ups of some of the characters... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Steve Boyum DVD Release Date: Released the 20 July 2004 Usually ships within 24 hours
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Director Joe Johnston has always had an entertaining sense of adventure, and with Hidalgo he proves it in spades. It's yet another underrated film for Johnston (along with such enjoyable popcorn flicks as The Rocketeer and Jurassic Park III), dismissed by many critics but a welcome treat for anyone drawn to good ol'-fashioned movie excitement. In his first role since playing Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Viggo Mortensen brings handsome appeal to his low-key portrayal of Frank T. Hopkins, a real-life long-distance horse racer who, as the movie opens, has witnessed the appalling massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1890. Drifting into Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, he agrees to compete, with his trusty mustang, Hidalgo, in "The Ocean of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Viggo Mortensen - Zuleikha Robinson - Omar Sharif Director(s): Joe Johnston DVD Release Date: Released the 03 August 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Despite box-office dominance during its opening weekend, The Butterfly Effect is better suited to guilty-pleasure viewing at home. When writer-directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber (who penned Final Destination 2) aren't breaking their own haphazard rules of logic, they're filling this sordid thriller with enough unpleasantness to make eternal damnation seem like an attractive alternative. In a role-reversal from his That '70s Show persona, Ashton Kutcher plays a college-age psychology student who discovers, by re-reading his childhood journals, that he can revisit his past and alter traumatic events, hoping to improve their previously unfortunate outcomes. Instead, this foolhardy experiment in chaos theory (the titular "butterfly effect," popularized by Jeff... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Ashton Kutcher - Melora Walters - Amy Smart Director(s): Eric Bress - J. Mackye Gruber DVD Release Date: Released the 06 July 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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