Musketeers---en garde!
Nov 1, 2009 14:58:12 GMT
Post by Kilted Cossack on Nov 1, 2009 14:58:12 GMT
Musketeers---charge!
I know that there are all different sorts of folks here at SBG. There are scholars, with a deep historical grounding in the swords they study and enthuse about. There are backyard cutters. There are JSA enthusiasts, CSA enthusiasts, enthusiasts, in sum, of all sorts.
Me, I tend to skip around some, and my enthusiasms are frequently fired by books and movies. In this case, it's both books and movies. I have the rapier bug, and I know exactly where it came from. Alexandre Dumas' novel The Three Musketeers is, quite simply, a rollicking joy. It's the kind of book that I like: adventurous, lusty, involved . . . like I said, "rollicking." I'd read an abridged version as an adolescent, and quite liked it, but what really cemented it in my mind was the film version directed by Richard Lester.
Now, for me, that 1973 film, and it's follow-on The Four Musketeers, are the definitive filmed version of Dumas' novel. (We don't discuss, nor even acknowledge, the Charlie Sheen/Donald Sutherland version that came out later, like some Star Trek fans deride and dismiss the Pepsi Generation with Jean-Luc Picard.) Just look at the casting! Michael York as d'Artagnan. Oliver Reed as Athos. Frank Finlay as Porthos. Richard Chamberlain as Aramis. Superb, simply superb---and that's not the half of it, with Charlton Heston as a superb Richelieu, Count Dooku himself as Rochefort and Raquel Welch and Faye Dunaway. While I'm at it, I need to mention Roy Kinnear's Planchet, Spike Milligan's Bonacieux, and Jean Cassel's marvelous turn as the king of France, Louis the Just.
Casting isn't everything, of course, and I'm sure we've all seen movies with all-star casts that simply didn't jell. This movie---or should I say 'these movies'?---worked. Somehow magic struck, and Dumas' novel translated remarkably to the screen. It probably didn't hurt, actually doubtless helped a great deal, that George McDonald Fraser wrote the screenplay. Yes, THAT George McDonald Fraser, the Fraser of The Steel Bonnets and the Flashman series. (Unless you're a Sandhurst graduate, you can learn most anything you need to know about British military history of the 19th century from reading the Flashman novels. Maybe even if you're a Sandhurst graduate.)
Oh yeah---that Bill Hobbs fellow did the fight choreography, too. Yes---THAT William Hobbs. Whereas most Hollywood movies show modern day fencing, Hobbs and Lester (and Fraser) went a different route with these films, with the fighters squaring up to each other, slashing, stabbing, brawling and kicking. Watching this film, you knew they weren't fencing. Oh yes---the actors did most of their own stunt work, and Oliver Reed took a rapier point in the throat during the waterwheel scene. (Or so I've heard---I wasn't there at the time.)
For me, that's plenty of inspiration right there. I've got the Anchor Bay DVD of the films, and they're the kind of films I can watch at almost any time. Is it any wonder that I've got the itch for a rapier?
With all of that as prologue . . . what rapiers would scratch this itch? (Or, alternatively, poke it?) They should fall within the SBG range---sub $300 functional---with some blade presence. I know, I know, talking about blade presence on a rapier sounds odd, but there you go. I'm a little odd myself. I could be off base, but I'm seeing in my mind's eye something equidistant between, say, a cut and thrust sword (like the Windlass Saxon hilt, or Munich town guard sword) and a "pure poker" set up more along the lines of a foil or epee.
Does anyone else out there love this movie as much as I do? And if so, can you throw in other movies that evoke the same kind of sentiment? Or books! When I read the adventures of Etienne Gerard, I ache for a good Hussar saber---what, you haven't read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard stories? For shame, my fellows, for shame! Or Sabatini's immortal Scaramouche!
Yes, I suppose there is a touch of Walter Mitty to all of this, but I'll have you know that we prefer to be addressed as Sir Walter, Captain of Her Majesty's fleet, don't you know. Ha!
--
"A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad," said he. "Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world." Rafael Sabatini
I know that there are all different sorts of folks here at SBG. There are scholars, with a deep historical grounding in the swords they study and enthuse about. There are backyard cutters. There are JSA enthusiasts, CSA enthusiasts, enthusiasts, in sum, of all sorts.
Me, I tend to skip around some, and my enthusiasms are frequently fired by books and movies. In this case, it's both books and movies. I have the rapier bug, and I know exactly where it came from. Alexandre Dumas' novel The Three Musketeers is, quite simply, a rollicking joy. It's the kind of book that I like: adventurous, lusty, involved . . . like I said, "rollicking." I'd read an abridged version as an adolescent, and quite liked it, but what really cemented it in my mind was the film version directed by Richard Lester.
Now, for me, that 1973 film, and it's follow-on The Four Musketeers, are the definitive filmed version of Dumas' novel. (We don't discuss, nor even acknowledge, the Charlie Sheen/Donald Sutherland version that came out later, like some Star Trek fans deride and dismiss the Pepsi Generation with Jean-Luc Picard.) Just look at the casting! Michael York as d'Artagnan. Oliver Reed as Athos. Frank Finlay as Porthos. Richard Chamberlain as Aramis. Superb, simply superb---and that's not the half of it, with Charlton Heston as a superb Richelieu, Count Dooku himself as Rochefort and Raquel Welch and Faye Dunaway. While I'm at it, I need to mention Roy Kinnear's Planchet, Spike Milligan's Bonacieux, and Jean Cassel's marvelous turn as the king of France, Louis the Just.
Casting isn't everything, of course, and I'm sure we've all seen movies with all-star casts that simply didn't jell. This movie---or should I say 'these movies'?---worked. Somehow magic struck, and Dumas' novel translated remarkably to the screen. It probably didn't hurt, actually doubtless helped a great deal, that George McDonald Fraser wrote the screenplay. Yes, THAT George McDonald Fraser, the Fraser of The Steel Bonnets and the Flashman series. (Unless you're a Sandhurst graduate, you can learn most anything you need to know about British military history of the 19th century from reading the Flashman novels. Maybe even if you're a Sandhurst graduate.)
Oh yeah---that Bill Hobbs fellow did the fight choreography, too. Yes---THAT William Hobbs. Whereas most Hollywood movies show modern day fencing, Hobbs and Lester (and Fraser) went a different route with these films, with the fighters squaring up to each other, slashing, stabbing, brawling and kicking. Watching this film, you knew they weren't fencing. Oh yes---the actors did most of their own stunt work, and Oliver Reed took a rapier point in the throat during the waterwheel scene. (Or so I've heard---I wasn't there at the time.)
For me, that's plenty of inspiration right there. I've got the Anchor Bay DVD of the films, and they're the kind of films I can watch at almost any time. Is it any wonder that I've got the itch for a rapier?
With all of that as prologue . . . what rapiers would scratch this itch? (Or, alternatively, poke it?) They should fall within the SBG range---sub $300 functional---with some blade presence. I know, I know, talking about blade presence on a rapier sounds odd, but there you go. I'm a little odd myself. I could be off base, but I'm seeing in my mind's eye something equidistant between, say, a cut and thrust sword (like the Windlass Saxon hilt, or Munich town guard sword) and a "pure poker" set up more along the lines of a foil or epee.
Does anyone else out there love this movie as much as I do? And if so, can you throw in other movies that evoke the same kind of sentiment? Or books! When I read the adventures of Etienne Gerard, I ache for a good Hussar saber---what, you haven't read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard stories? For shame, my fellows, for shame! Or Sabatini's immortal Scaramouche!
Yes, I suppose there is a touch of Walter Mitty to all of this, but I'll have you know that we prefer to be addressed as Sir Walter, Captain of Her Majesty's fleet, don't you know. Ha!
--
"A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad," said he. "Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world." Rafael Sabatini