I had fond memories of watching this as a kid at was delighted to find it holds up really well. A colourful, unpretentious swashbuckler, it has plenty of action and a decent story. It concerns the adventures of the sons of the musketeers - rather, three sons and one daughter (Maureen O'Hara).
The "daughter" factor is what gives the film its special kick -to my knowledge no one has done a study of Maureen O'Hara as feminist warrior (maybe because of all those John Wayne movies where she gets spanked at the end) but here she fights baddies as equals , is very brave and full of spirit and as a great time flirting with the boys. Often in modern action films kick butt women are given other women to fight at the end, but O'Hara takes on men just like other heroes. The script also has fun with her being part of a usually male ensemble -there's a sequence when she first meets the others and they think she's a boy (because she hides her hair - come on, it's Maureen O'Hara, she was stacked like anything) and they say they all have to sleep in the one bed together; later on there's two scenes where O'Hara pretends to be a woman with multiple boyfriends (ah, the French). So the film has an unexpected "swinger" attitude.
The cast is pretty strong: Cornel Wilde is very American and I was never a big fan but he's a brilliant fencer (of Olympic standard in real life), Dan O'Herlihy is ideal as a lecherous Aramis, ditto Alan Hale Jnr as Porthos (what a shame his dad couldn't have played his on-screen dad); Gladys Cooper is the Queen and Robert Douglas a top notch villain (Douglas never enjoyed the reputation as a villain of Henry Daniell or Basil Rathbone but I think he was up there - maybe not as good but just below).
The story concerns the musketeers trying to stop Douglas marrying Cooper's daughter (could have maybe used a bit of a love triangle here between Wilde, O'Hara and the daughter, but no bother) and save the young Louis XIV (who here is a whiny brat who at one stage is pressured by Douglas into signing some dodgy document... because he's scared of the dark! Wimpy!) One of the best films from the dying days of RKO.
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