The Four Musketeers

I went over to Emeryville to buy a shirt at UNIQLO and to see “Solo” again, and then I went to the Grand Lake Theatre to see “Infinity War” again.  A parent and son would not stop talking through the entire movie.  I ate at JJ Burger and stopped at Fentons to take a photo of the Stomper statue and buy a scoop of chocolate marble.  I returned home and watched “The Four Musketeers,” a movie from my youth that had Michael York as D’Artagnan.  It was filmed at the same time as “The Third Musketeers” but was not as enjoyable.  If it had been released as one movie 214 minutes long with an intermission, it would have been too repetitive with the fight scenes, and audiences would have been exhausted.  Character development and an engrossing plot are not features of this movie.  It is kind of interesting that Faye Dunaway’s character, Milady, moves things along.  Her last scene on the rowboat made me think of “The Godfather Part II.”  I kept thinking of how not many years passed from the time of this movie until the period of “Mommie Dearest” through “Supergirl.”  Raquel Welch was Constance.  Watching her was painful in this movie.  This movie has sadness in it.  We see York hiding in a trough of water.  It was amazed that he did it because the water looked dirty.  There was a fight scene on ice and in a burning building.  One battle with explosives and ladders made me think of “How I Won the War.”  The story just ends, although it could have gone on.  Despite the fact that I hated what happened at the end, I wished the movie would have continued.  I guess it’s because I didn’t want to see Charlton Heston go on to appear in those disaster movies later in the 1970s, or Raquel to do “Mother, Jugs and Speed.”  Part of my childhood was ending with the end of this movie.  Richard Chamberlain wasn’t a great musketeer in this film.  He would later appear in “Shogun.”  Heston wasn’t identified with the NRA in those days.  Geraldine Page seemed like a real movie star.  Richard Lester directed “Robin and Marian,” “Superman II,” “Superman III,” “The Return of the Musketeers,” and “Get Back.”  The Musketeers sequel had C. Thomas Howell, Kim Cattrall, and Philippe Noiret in it.  I have never seen it.  Some of the people who died on June 6 include Louis Lumière (1948), Carl Jung (1961), Robert F. Kennedy (1968), Jack Haley (1979), Stan Getz (1991), James Bridges (1993), Anne Bancroft (2005), Billy Preston (2006), and Esther Williams (2013).  Today is a birthday for Paul Giamatti (51), Bjorn Borg (62), Cynthia Rylant (64), and Gary U.S. Bonds (79).  According to the Brandon Brooks Rewind radio segment for June 6, Sam Peckinpah’s first film, “The Deadly Companion,” starring Maureen O’Hara and Brian Keith, was released in 1961.  In 1964, The Dixie Cups’ “Chapel of Love” was the Number One single.  In 1965, the Rolling Stones released their single, “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”  In 1972, David Bowie released his album “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.”  In 1979, the Mel Gibson movie “Mad Max” was released.  Also in 1979, Jack Haley, who was the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz,” died of cancer at age 79.  In 1992, David Bowie married Iman in Switzerland.  In 1997, “Con Air,” starring Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich, and Steve Buscemi, was released.