The novel by Alexandre Dumas "Viscount de Bragelon, or Ten Years Later", completing his famous trilogy about the Musketeers, unfortunately was not as successful on the screen adaptation as, directly, the first book - "Three Musketeers". Perhaps the filmmakers for a long time repelled by the huge volume of the novel (usually in three volumes) and the sad finale of the work. However, even if and who took up his adaptation, it was mainly used the storyline associated with the Iron Mask. The film Fernando Cerchio"Viscount de Brajelon" was no exception (although the story with the twin brother of King Louis XIV is far from the foreground), filmed during the period of the so-called "cloak and swords" genre popular in the 1950s-60s.
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The peculiarity of this genre was that in the priority of these Franco-Italian films about the XVII centuries were adventurous adventures and fights (in addition to constant fencing). Hence a certain ease of what is happening on the screen, freedom in relation to the source. So to some extent, the shortcomings of Viscount de Bragelon are quite justified.
The main character of the film becomes, as you should guess, Raoul de Bragelon (George Marshal) - a Musketeer, who sometimes acts as a secret messenger of the king. But as for D’Artagnan and his friends, they, unfortunately, were pushed to the background (and so much so that Aramis was not in the film at all, and Athos and Porthos flashed in only one episode). Raoul’s unfortunate love story for Louise de Lavalier, at the same time, was preserved, but changed her finale, making it more optimistic.
In general, if the film did not have a storyline with the betrayal of Louise Raoul with Louis XIV, one would doubt that we have a film adaptation, and not a costumed historical adventure film with characters from the book. By the way, about the characters of the book - in the film an important role is played by Helen Winter (Down Adams), which was not in the novel. But, despite such an iconic name for the Dumas trilogy, this beautiful Englishwoman has nothing to do with Milady and her son Mordaunt. It is not superfluous to add that she will ultimately represent Raoul’s love interest (that’s just why she constantly protects him, it is not immediately clear).
Cardinal Mazarin ("Nico Pepe"), in fact, does not differ in the film from his predecessor Richelieu (whose image in various gradations of villainy is successfully shown in other film adaptations). The same royal ambitions, the same love of intrigue and the desire to know everything first. And, of course, in the assistants of Mazarin is a loyal nobleman, who now and then enters into battles with the main character. Even if his name is not Rochefort, but Bossier.
In general, we have a rather incomprehensible picture in every sense. Yes, it was shot in the spirit of that time, and as a film of the genre of “cloak and swords” looks good (especially in childhood). But as a film adaptation of Dumas’ novel, this is a very mediocre work that does not want to reconsider again.
5 out of 10