At Sword's Point

Alan Hale Jr. plays the son of Porthos here. His father, Alan Hale, appeared in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) as an aging Porthos. When that film was remade as The Fifth Musketeer (1979), that role was taken by Hale Jr. In that same movie the role of an aging D'Artagnan was played by Cornel Wilde, this picture's son of D'Artagnan. Also here, the elderly Porthos is played by Moroni Olsen, who played that character in his younger days in the film of the original Dumas novel, The Three Musketeers (1935).

The opening narration mentions the year 1648, implying that Cardinal Richelieu died then, and the loss of his "strong hand holding the country together" was the beginning a period of great instability in France that led to the events depicted in this film. However, he passed away in 1642, leaving 1648 to be interpreted as the year this story takes place. The problem with that is the fact that Queen Anne, whose own death is indicated here, died in 1666 when son Louis XIV was 27 years old and long since reigning on his own, not the prepubescent boy for whom she acted as regent seen here. Said regency ended in 1651, not 1648.

Version of La maschera di ferro (1909)