HELLRAISERS: The Three Musketeers

In an embarrassing example of Well Known Film Facts Totally Passing Me By, I had no idea, when I added Richard Lester’s ‘The Three Musketeers’ to the rental list, that its sequel (the cunningly titled ‘Four Musketeers’) actually compromised the second part of Dumas’s novel instead of being the rushed-into-production quick cash-in that I’d assumed it was.

Turns out, too, that both films were shot at the same time – indeed, the cast thought they were just making one (fairly long) film. When producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind released the thing in two halves, to not inconsiderable box office, the main cast united in apposite “all for one, one for all” stylee and brought a court action against the filmmakers.

Watching ‘The Three Musketeers’ over the bank holiday weekend, I had the schizophrenic experience of finding the behind-the-scenes battle more interesting than any of the swordplay on offer (don’t get me wrong: it’s excitingly done and Oliver Reed, to use the vernacular, proper goes for it; there’s just too damn much – it’s swords drawn every five minutes or so and after the fifth or sixth bout a sense of repetition sets in) and yet, as the end credits – with their little teaser for ‘The Four Musketeers’ – rolled, I was cursing that I hadn’t added that title to the rental list while I was at it.

Schizophrenic is a good description of the film overall. Oliver Reed brings real gravitas to the role of Athos, likewise Christopher Lee to the role of Rochefort, yet the presence of comic stalwarts Roy Kinnear and Spike Milligan, coupled with Frank Finlay’s buffoonish portrayal of Porthos and a general tendency by Lester to play entire sequences as exercises in broad physical comedy, gives the film an air of ‘Carry On D’Artagnan’.

Speaking of D’Artagnan, the casting of Michael York (along with that of Richard Chamberlain as Aramis) turns half of the Musketeers into pretty boys, and while the shirtless York demonstrates a buffed-up muscularity, his screen presence is at odds to Reed’s brooding intensity.

Then again, the cast as a whole is something of a pick ‘n’ mix bag: where else would you find Faye Dunaway, Raquel Welsh, Charlton Heston, Joss Ackland, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Simon Ward, Geraldine Chaplin, ‘Likely Lads’ star Rodney Bewes and (I kid you not!) Sybil Danning rubbing shoulders in the same movie?

Perhaps the unlikeliest candidate emerges as most appealing: Raquel Welsh’s aptitude for deadpan comedy is priceless, her portrayal of Constance de Bonacieux as a coquettish clutz both satirises her sex symbol status and turns what could have been a mere set-dressing role into a scene-stealing success. Roy Kinnear, too, deserves a ‘man of the match’ award for two bits of inspired silliness: his attack on Rochefort with an uprooted sapling, and his twatting of a court guard while dressed as a bear.

The pacing is uneven – because of the high-end frequency of the sword fights, the moment the film pauses to deal with court intrigue or flesh out a character, inertia sets in – and some of the acting is just plain wooden, but for all the tomfoolery George Macdonald Fraser’s script retains a commendable fidelity to the novel and at 103 minutes it’s an entertaining timewaster that doesn’t waste too much of your time. Damned if I haven’t added the follow-up to my rental list.

Major Dundee

"You were whipped, major. Burying your dead isn't going to change that."

Background
Among the many admirers of 'Ride the High Country' was Charlton Heston. He and producer Jerry Bresler were developing a property provisionally entitled 'Then Came the Tiger' - a synopsis by Harry Julian Fink that had all the makings of a full-blooded cavalry epic - for Columbia. Heston and Bresler's previous collaboration, 'Diamond Head', had done solid business at the box office. Peckinpah didn't need asking twice when he was offered directing duties. Fink got the nod to write the script proper, Bresler talked up the production as a big-budget roadshow release, and Peckinpah headed to Mexio to scout locations. The first problem was the script: Fink's first draft was unfocussed and - crucially - unfinished. Oscar Saul and Peckinpah himself worked on it, but essentially the now retitled 'Major Dundee' started shooting without a finalised screenplay - never a good indicator for a film.

Then, with principal photography well underway and half of Peckinpah's cast and crew stricken with illness, the money men at Columbia decided to slash budget and schedule. The epic destined for a roadshow release was now downgraded to a two-hour western. Peckinpah, unimpressed by Bresler's subservience to the studio, completely ignored his paymasters' edict to cut scenes, use fewer set-ups and expose less film. He continued to shoot every bit of footage he needed to make the film as he envisaged it. 'Major Dundee' went massively overbudget and behind schedule. In post-production, the studio took Peckinpah's two hour fifty minute original cut out of his hands, hacked it down by a third, had actor Michael J Anderson record a truly horrible narration which sloppily papers over plot holes and gaps in the chronology, and saddled it with an equally appalling score.

Between his very public criticism of Bresler and Columbia and his removal from his next project, 'The Cincinnati Kid', Peckinpah became a pariah within the industy. Four years in the wilderness followed, before he came storming back, all blood and thunder and very much unbowed, with his masterpiece 'The Wild Bunch'.

Synopsis
Transferred to the command of a prison garrison as part of a disciplinary measure, Major Amos Dundee (Charlton Heston) arrives at his new post to witness the aftermath of a raid on nearby homesteaders by marauding Apache warrior Sierra Charriba (Michael Pate). Already balking at a posting that takes him out of the theatre of conflict, Dundee goes renegade: he puts together a makeshift army of volunteers and prisoners. (Technically, many of the prisoners are volunteers given a choice of volunteer or be hanged.) He appoints his one-time friend and now sworn enemy Captain Benjamin Tyreen (Richard Harris) as his number two, and they set out to hunt Charriba down. An ambush during a river crossing costs lives and the loss of supplies. Dundee leads his men to a small Mexican town where the soldiers of a French garrison hold sway. Effectively liberating the villagers, Dundee is moved enough by their destitution to share with them the supplies looted from the garrison. He meets Teresa (Senta Berger), the Austrian widow of the town's doctor, and they begin a brief romantic relationship. The idyll is interrupted when Charriba's men stage another attack, and Dundee is forced into battle not only with the Apaches but a battalion of vengeful French troops.

Analysis
The Sony Home Entertainment DVD I'm basing this review on bills itself as "a restored masterpiece". The back cover blurb continues: "over 40 years after Sam Peckinpah's classic western was released, missing footage has been located and restored. The new scenes complete the electrifying depiction of an obsessive Union officer ..." etc, etc. Now, while there are many reasons to be thankful for this version - a much improved transfer; correct ratio; the removal of the fucking awful opening credits music by Mitch Miller's Sing-a-long Gang - claiming that an extra ten minutes or so "completes" the film when well over half an hour is still missing is stretching it a bit.

'Major Dundee' will forever remain a frustrating viewing experience, for two reasons. Number one: Richard Harris declared the original cut to be the best film he'd ever appeared in (this from a man who already had indisputable classics 'This Sporting Life' and 'Red Desert' under his belt!). Number two: Peckinpah had the opportunity to restore it to his original vision ... and declined!! Five years on from the debacle, with 'The Wild Bunch' in the can and 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue' in production, Peckinpah was still publically berating Columbia for their desecration of 'Major Dundee' and describing the original cut as still his best film. Columbia called his bluff and offered him the chance to re-edit and re-release it. Citing his involvement with other projects, Peckinpah replied that he didn't have the time. David Weddle, in his indispensible biography, postulates that the film was "more useful as a lost masterpiece than a rediscovered failure".

So what of the two hours and ten minutes that remain? The first half, certainly, is taut and compelling filmmaking. Dundee's hell-raising address to the prisoners; the countdown to Tyreen's hanging, curtailed only when he volunteers; the departure from the garrison, tensions already rising; the attack on the French fort; the execution of a deserter on the trail - memorable scenes, all. Two in particular are worthy of comparison to anything on Peckinpah's CV. The first has the Confederates launch into a lusty rendition of 'Dixie' as the rag-tag ad hoc battalion rides out from the garrison. Affronted, the Confederates strike up with 'The Battle Hymn of the American Republic'. As the two groups try to drown each other out, the small (and evidently politically unaffiliated) cluster of men bringing up the rear shrug their shoulders and start belting out 'Clementine'. It's one of Peckinpah's occasional, brilliantly observed comedic moments (like the passing of the whisky bottle, Warren Oates finally getting a go at it only when it's empty, in 'The Wild Bunch' or the supposedly under-attack stagecoach later revealed as a playful re-enacted by an Apache raiding party in 'The Deadly Companions').

The second - and the best scene in the film - has one of Tyreen's men, O.W. Hadley (Oates), summarily tried after going AWOL. He pleads that he only went back to the Mexican village to see one of the women. Quizzed on the details (Dundee is cognizant, by this point, that the French have sacked the village in retribution), Hadley reveals himself as a liar. Dundee stands as judge, jury and if not executioner then certainly all too eager to give the command to the firing squad. Not that it gets to that point. Hadley pleads with Tyreen, asking if he's really going to stand by and let Dundee have him killed. "I'm obliged to, lad," Tyreen replies; "you should have remembered you belong to the major and not to me." Hadley, blinking with the realisation that he's reached the end of the line, faces up to it, addressing Dundee: "Hell, major, you're just doing what you've got to do. But damn your soul to hell for it, and God bless Robert E. Lee!" Even as he speaks Lee's name, Tyreen's pistol roars and Hadley pitches forward dead. In killing Hadley himself, Tyreen cheats Dundee of the satisfaction. He then swears to kill Dundee once Charriba "has been caught or destroyed".

Sadly, things go south after this. Dundee's liaison with Teresa slows the film down. Gaps in the narrative become more prominent and the voiceover more tenuous. 'Major Dundee' becomes, in its last hour, episodic, fragmented, unfocused. A sequence that was presumably longer (and more coherent) in Peckinpah's original cut has Dundee, recovering from wounds sustained during a surprise attack, debase himself with a whore (at the cost of his relationship with Teresa) in a fly-blown Mexican town. Coming on like a dry run for Pike, Dutch and the Gorch brothers' collective moment of self-loathing in 'The Wild Bunch', what works as visceral psychological portraiture in 'The Wild Bunch' just seems out of place in 'Major Dundee'. Dundee's debasement is apropos of nothing, nor does it prefigure the cathartic self-destruction of Pike and co.; Dundee simply rejoins the battalion and snaps back into grizzled, macho leader of men mode.

The denouement is unsatisfying, too. The long-awaited showdown with Charriba is unengaging and over quickly. The subsequent battle with the French troops is a hell of a lot more exciting, but it's still just the resolution of a subplot. The whole film builds towards the destruction of Charriba, and - whether this is due to the script never fully cohering, Peckinpah muffing the sequence (hardly likely given his facility for extended, actionful set pieces) or clumsy fingers in the editing room when the only criteria was reduction of the running time to two hours - it's a case of not with a bang but a whimper.

Elsewhere, however, Peckinpah proves himself as an actor's director. Charlton Heston, as can be expected, plays Charlton Heston, but everyone else is superb. Harris, working with Peckinpah for the first and only time, has a field day with Tyreen. The supporting cast solidifies the Peckinpah Irregulars: Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong and John Davis Chandler return from 'Ride the High Country', while James Coburn, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Dub Taylor and Aurora Clavel fill out the ranks. Even the much put-upon Senta Berger (her performance critically mauled, even though she does a decent salvage job from very thin material) would reappear, twelve years later, in 'Cross of Iron'. Armstrong kicks ass in the name of the Lord (doling out a retributive beating to one of Tyreen's men guilty of racially harrassing one of the battalion's black contingent) and Pickens, cruelly underused, gets an iconic moment when he reels into Dundee's office, drunk as a lord, and announces "If you want an injun-fightin', mule-packin', whisky-drinkin' volunteer, sir, well by God you've got one." It's tempting to imagine that the full version of 'Major Dundee' brings these colourful secondary characters out of the background and gives them life - a damn sight more life than Heston's misery-guts protagonist.

PERSONAL FAVES: Bowling for Columbine

Ten jaw-dropping moments from 'Bowling for Columbine':

1) A bank handing out free guns as an incentive to open an account.

2) Michael Moore teaming up with two Columbine survivors who still have K-Mart-sold ammunition embedded in them to petition K-Mart against selling ammunition. The retail chain acts promptly and decisively, promising a phasing out of all ammo sales within 90 days. Slainte, Mr Moore.

3) Moore interviewing Terry McVeigh, brother of convicted Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh; the gentlemen proves a seriously maladjusted individual.

4) Goth bad boy Marilyn Manson providing the most insightful, intelligent and eloquent interview in the entire film. When asked what he would say to the survivors of the Columbine massacre, he replies unhesitatingly, "Not a word. I'd have listened to what they had to say. And that's what nobody's been doing."

5) Moore's deconstruction of the government-manipulated, media-driven culture of fear: reality cop shows on which the suspects are invariably black; the "if it bleeds, it leads" attitude of TV newsmen.

6) The "What A Wonderful World" archive footage montage, culminating in the second plane striking the tower.

7) The NRA and the KKK: that historical connection in full. The first Klan,
established in 1866 by Confederate veterans with the stated aim of restoring white supremacy to America, was effectively outlawed with the passing the Civil Rights Act of 1871. Guess which year the NRA was founded? Coindence? You decide.

8) The NRA holding a rally in Colorado, just two weeks after the Columbine shootings, OAP gun-worshipper and celebrity frontman Charlton Heston tactlessly hefting a rifle and shouting "From my cold dead hands." Knob. (Moore's critics have stated that this rally was planned years in advance. As Bill Hicks would have said, I have four questions: yeah? and? so? what? Cancel the fucking thing. Have some sensitivity. If a major Hollywood studio can postpone the UK release of 'Gone Baby Gone' because of possible similarities to the Madeleine McCann case, then surely the NRA can pull out of a rally after a high school shooting that leaves thirteen dead.)

9) The NRA then topping this by holding a rally in Michigan, shortly after a six-year old boy in Moore's home town of Flint took a handgun to school and shot six-year old Kayla Rowland with it. (Moore's critics use the same argument here. The same counter-argument applies.)

10) OAP gun-worshipper and NRA celebrity frontman Charlton Heston agreeing to an interview with Moore at the end of the film, only to come across as an even bigger knob than he did in the archive footage and a man terminally in denial.*

And two other 'Bowling for Columbine'-connected jaw-dropping moments:

1) Moore using his acceptance speech for the Best Documentary Oscar to lambast Dubya. "Shame on you, Mr President. Shame on you." So say we all.

2) Yours truly reading user comments on IMDb, astounded at how many commentors accuse Moore of being manipulative, a liar, or a propagandist. As if twelve students and a teacher never died, and a further twenty-three were never injured, at Columbine. As if six-year-old Kayla Rowland wasn't killed by a gun in Flint. It puts me in mind of Bill Hicks's comment on the gun-loving psyche of the American public: "But of course there's no connection between having a gun and shooting someone with it and not having a gun and not shooting someone, and you'd be a fool and a communist to make one."

It is currently illegal, in 13 countries, to advocate the opinion that the Holocaust never took place. Moore's detractors, who think that gun ownership is a good thing, have the same mentality as Holocaust deniers. 'Bowling for Columbine' throws their own refletion back at them. No wonder they don't like it.


*You may have noticed that this entry is demonstrably not dedicated to the memory of Charlton Heston.