the rendezvous and suggests to the none-too-bright King to throw a ball in his wife's honor, and request she wear the diamonds he gave her. The Cardinal also sends his agent Milady de Winter to England, who seduces the Duke and steals two of the necklace's diamonds. Meanwhile, the Queen has confided her troubles in Constance, who asks d'Artagnan to go to England and get back the diamonds. D'Artagnan and the three musketeers set out, but on the way the Cardinal's men attack them. Only d'Artagnan and his servant make it through to Buckingham, where they discover the loss of two of the diamond settings. The Duke replaces the two settings, and d'Artagnan races back to Paris. Porthos, Athos, and Aramis, wounded but not dead as d'Artagnan had feared, aid the delivery of the complete necklace to the Queen, saving the royal couple from the embarrassment which the Cardinal and Milady de Winter had plotted. Inducted, to Constance's delight, into the Musketeers of the King's Guard, d'Artagnan exchanges meaningful looks with Milady de Winter. Cast Production Development According to George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Lester became involved with the project when the producers briefly considered casting The Beatles as the Musketeers, as Lester had directed two films with the group. The Beatles idea fell by the wayside but Lester stayed. It would be Lester's first film in five years, although he had been busy directing commercials and had sought finance for other projects in that time, including an adaptation of the novel Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser. Lester says he had "never heard of" the Salkinds. They asked him if he was interested in doing The Three Musketeers and asked if he had read it. Lester said "Yes, I have read it, everybody's read it." He read "the first 200 pages, got excited and said yes". Lester said the producers "wanted it to be a sexy film and they wanted it to be with big sexy stars" such as Leonard Whiting and Ursula Andress. He said "I just didn't say no to anything in the early stages" and that the "die was cast" when he was allowed to hire George MacDonald Fraser to write the script. Fraser had never written a script before but thought that Flashman had the tone he was going for. In late 1972 Lester offered Fraser the job. According to Fraser, Lester originally said he wanted to