Milady and the Three Musketeers (2004 TV Movie) User Reviews

The Secret Past and Origins of the Musketeers archenemy Milady de Winter.

[FromBookstoFilm · 7/10 · 18 February 2007]

I loved this 3/4 of the book adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. Arielle Dombasle was perfectly cast as Milady de Winter but just a little long in the tooth (a good twenty years older than the character in the book was.Milady in the book was aged from 24 to 28 years old Arielle Dombasle was 43 to 45 years when accepting the part.She still looks great, though.) Blonde,blue eyed and beautiful with alabaster skin just like Alexandre Dumas wrote about in his novel. The other 1/4 of the story is not Dumas but Dumas would most likely be proud of Milady being written as a descendant of murdered French Protestants and being part English on her Father's side and from line of troublemaking women starting with grandmother Jeanne de Breuil.This Milady is called Charlotte which in the book was an aka her real name was Anne de Breuil in this film Anne de Breuil Backson is Milady's Mother who married an Englishman Thomas Backson.The Thomas Backson character was not a creation of Dumas. Milady de Winter in the Dumas novel was a Roman Catholic who knew the Protestant religion because she had Protestant servant girl and a Protestant nanny in England who took care of her infant son. What Dumas would object to would be Milady's character being written as a bisexual who is having an affair with another noble woman a character not in any of Dumas' novels. Around 70 years ago an author by the name of Tiffany Thayer wrote a version of Three Musketeers centering on Milady de Winter's past (no lesbianism involved though)whether Josee Dayan was inspired by this author's book I have no idea.Several other film adaptations certainly were inspired by Mr. Thayer's work the 1948,1993,2003 and 2005 versions. I am also pleased that this version kept the Lord de Winter character in the production because few film adaptations do. The sets were good but the costumes were not exactly 17th century but were quite lovely. All in all I think this should be viewed by anyone who is a fan of the Musketeer genre. Anyone interested in another version of Milady see the 1951 film version called Milady and the Musketeers.Anyone who is also interested in seeing an abbreviated version of Milady with Arielle Dombasle go to YouTube and put in Milady or Milady de Winter in the search engine. The clip covers her life including her marriage to Athos and her execution.