[The Three Musketeers] is well within the tradition of … the swashbuckling sub-genre. Although there is none of the fragmented narration through the editing which one usually associates with Lester …, the fragmentation through anarchic humour of a serious world view remains part of the Lester method. There is a constant rush of jokes on every level, from the traditional slapstick surrounding insanely furious sequences of swordplay to near-whispered comic comment by a set of court dwarves. Characters are conceived in comically larger than life, so that the usually romantic Constance … is here beautiful but clumsy—falling down stairs, walking into walls, or catching her foot in a pail of water while being embraced by D'Artagnan…. Most of the comedy works well. When it doesn't, we are faced with a problem in the modern cinema which must have given Lester, too, more than a few moments of puzzlement as he...