D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers

D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers (Russian: д'Артаньян и три мушкетёра) is a three-part musical miniseries produced in the Soviet Union and first aired in 1978. It is based on the novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père.

The film stars Mikhail Boyarsky as D'Artagnan, Veniamin Smekhov as Athos, Igor Starygin as Aramis, Valentin Smirnitsky as Porthos, Margarita Terekhova as Milady de Winter, Oleg Tabakov as King Louis XIII, Alisa Freindlich as Anne of Austria, Aleksandr Trofimov as Cardinal Richelieu, and Lev Durov as Captain de Tréville. The film, and its numerous songs became extremely popular in the Soviet Union throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, and is now considered a classic.

Three sequels were made: Musketeers Twenty Years After (1992), The Secret of Queen Anne or Musketeers Thirty Years After (1993) and The Return of the Musketeers, or The Treasures of Cardinal Mazarin (2009).

Plot
The film consists of three parts: EPISODE ONE D’Artagnan, a young country bumpkin rides to Paris in hopes of becoming a musketeer. In Meung he is insulted by Rochefort, an agent of the Cardinal. A fight ensues, and d’Artagnan Is robbed and left bleeding. Later he meets M. De Tréville, captain of the king’s musketeers. Suddenly, he sees Rochefort and jumps out the window. He crashes into Athos, a wounded musketeer who calls him an idiot and challenged him to a duel at noon. D’Artagnan continues his chase, crashing into two other musketeers, Porthos and Aramis and gets challenged to two other duels. Arriving for the first duel, Athos duels d’Artagnan until Porthos and Aramis arrive, and are astonished that they will all fight the same boy. The Cardinals Guards arrive and a fight ensues. The musketeers kill most of the guards and a few lucky ones escape. The musketeers make friends. Later d’Artagnan rescues Constance, a married seamstress for the Queen and they fall in love.
 * Part I: "Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan" (Атос, Портос, Арамис и д'Артаньян)
 * Part II: "The Queen's Diamond Studs" (Подвески королевы)
 * Part III: "The Adventures Continue" (Приключения продолжаются)

France, the beginning of the XVII century. The poor Gascon Chevalier d’Artagnan is sent to Paris to join the company of the royal musketeers, like his father before him. In Mengue, he stumbles upon Count Rochefort, starts a fight, breaks his sword and loses a letter of recommendation addressed to the captain of the musketeers and his father’s friend, Mr. de Treville. After he arrives in Paris and meets with the commander of the musketeers of the king, however, he notices a man who looks like Rochefort, and sets off in pursuit. On the run, he inadvertently pushes the wounded Athos, causing him pain, accidentally insults Porthos, ripping off his cloak and putting on public display a cheap bandage, and Aramis, having compromised his romance with the noblewoman, and all three summon d’Artagnan to a duel.

At the place of the meeting, in front of Porthos and Aramis, d’Artagnan and Athos are ready to cross their swords, when suddenly a detachment of guardsmen Cardinal Richelieu, led by the commander of the personal cardinal guard, Mr. de Jussac. The Musketeers, joined by d’Artagnan, decide to attack the guards and win.

After that, d’Artagnan becomes a friend of Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Soon he saves Constance, the wife of haberdasher Bonacieux and the maid of honor of the Queen, from the people of the cardinal and falls in love with her. After this incident, he meets with Cardinal Richelieu, who decided to lure the brave Gascon into his service - however, to no avail. Soon after, the Queen of France Anna of Austria gives diamond pendants to her lover and favorite of the King of England Carl Stuart, Duke of Buckingham, as the Cardinal learns. He seeks help from Milady de Winter, and she robs the Duke of two pendants. Taking this opportunity, Richelieu convinces the king of France Louis XIII to ask the queen to come to the Marlezon ballet with pendants. The queen is desperate, but Constance Bonacieux comes to her aid and convinces d’Artagnan to decide on a trip to London, with which the Gascon successfully copes. However, then, in order to avoid the wrath of the cardinal, Constantia has to flee to the convent in Bethune, where, nevertheless, she is found by milady, having Richelieu ordered that the haberdasher's wife be brought to him at all costs. This fails and milady kills Constance with poison (d’Artagnan witnesses the death of her lover).

Soon, a war between France and England erupted, with King Carl Stewart deciding to help the Huguenots of La Rochelle. At the same time, the cardinal gathers an army and besieges La Rochelle. Under the walls of the citadel of French Protestants go d'Artagnan, who became a musketeer, and his friends. Soon there is an unsuccessful assassination attempt on d’Artagnan, whose customer became milady, and he listens to Athos's story about a certain Count de La Fer and his unhappy love story in half-song form at the restaurant “Red Dovecote”. Then milady meets the cardinal and their conversation eavesdrops on Athos. The cardinal leaves, giving Milady a note giving her complete freedom of action, including in the case of d’Artagnan, but Athos forces Milady to give him the paper. It turns out that Athos and milady were formerly spouses, and Athos himself is the very Count de La Fer.

After there is a story with the poisoned Anjou wine, during which milady manages to escape and find shelter in the small fishing hut indicated by the cardinal, from where she must go to England in order to eliminate the Duke of Buckingham. The latter, however, orders his man Felton to arrest milady, which is what is happening.

But milady succeeds in convincing Felton of her innocence and pushing him to kill the duke, for which he returned to England. However, d’Artagnan and his friends track down milady and punish her after the trial, and the sentence is carried out by the former Lille executioner, whose brother Milady had once killed. The cardinal learns about the death of milady and, having arrested musketeers friends on a formal charge of desertion, calls them to himself, receives from Atos a paper issued by milady and, having destroyed the document, offers the musketeers a letter of lieutenant. Athos and Porthos refuse it, and Aramis asks the cardinal to honor d'Artagnan with this rank, after which Athos, as an excuse for the desertion, offers himself and his friends a test in the form of breakfast in the bastion of Saint-Gervais, at the forefront of the siege, and it It turns out to be musketeers. Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan return victorious, and d'Artagnan deservedly becomes a lieutenant of the royal musketeers.

Cast

 * Mikhail Boyarsky - d’Artanyan
 * Veniamin Smekhov - Athos, Count de La Fer (the song "There is a Black Pond in the Count's Park" was performed by Vyacheslav Nazarov)
 * Valentin of Smyrnitsky - Porthos
 * Igor Starygin - Aramis (voiced by Igor Yasulovich, songs were performed by the soloist of VIA Korobeyniki Vladimir Chuykin)
 * Oleg Tabakov - King Louis XIII
 * Alexander Trofimov - Cardinal Richelieu (voiced by Mikhail Kozakov, songs were performed by Alexander Trofimov himself)
 * Alice Freindlich - Anna of Austria, Queen
 * Lev Durov - de Treville (duet with M. Boyarsky performed by Lev Durov, solo part - Alexander Levshin)
 * Margarita Terekhova - Milady (in the first series in a duet with Boris Klyuyev, Elena Dryatskaya sang, in the third series the song was performed by Margarita Terekhova herself)
 * Boris Klyuev - Rochefort
 * Irina Alferova - Constance Bonacieux (voiced by Anastasia Vertinskaya, songs performed by Elena Dryatskaya)
 * Leonid Kanevsky - Mr. Bonacieux, haberdasher
 * Alexey Kuznetsov - Duke of Buckingham
 * Vladimir Balon de Jussac
 * Elena Tsyplakova - Catti (in the credits of the first episode of I. Tsyplakova, songs were performed by Elena Dryatskaya)
 * Valery Myshasty - d’Artanyan's father (voice and vocals Dmitry Atovmyan)
 * Olga Mateshko - a girl from Menga
 * Yuri Dubrovin - La Chenet
 * Violetta Klimenko - Abbess of the Bethune Monastery (voiced by Liya Akhedzhakova)
 * Maria Yarygina - Marquise, mistress of the king (voiced by Nina Maslova)
 * Yuri Sherstnev - executioner from Lille