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It's hard to pick just one great performance by one great actor—I've seen many. Growing up in New York City, I started going to the theater at the tender age of 7. I saw many great performances by people like Zero Mostel, Julie Andrews, Anne Bancroft, and Henry Fonda, very early on by Mary Martin, and even by Paul Muni, but in 1969 I saw James Earl Jones in "The Great White Hope" with Jane Alexander. It was one of the last performances before the show closed, and 42 years later I still remember the power of that performance. Of course I've seen Mr. Jones in many things since then—great work in film and several more theater productions. If ever there was an actor that was in the right part at the right time in his career in was James Earl as Jack Jefferson—young, brash, powerful. I'm sure that performance.

Michael York dashes onto the cinematic scene as the blundering but very enthusiastic D'Artagnan in Richard Lester's hugely enjoyable period comic romp. The late great Roy Kinnear is the long-suffering vassal of aristocratic swordsmen Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain and Frank Finlay, whilst Raquel Welch and Faye Dunaway shine as heroine and villainess, respectively. Producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind filmed the following year's sequel back-to-back with this more successful first part, which approach they would revisit shortly for Superman and Superman II. Dumas with wit, energy and integrity.

Notable Quotable: "That man in his time has insulted me, broken my father's sword, had me clubbed to the ground, laid violent hands on the woman I love! He is inconvenient. "

Martin Anderson

Mike Nichols and Buck Henry achieve what seemed impossible, at least on the evidence of an earlier attempt: to transliterate the pitch-dark war humour of Joseph Heller into a cohesive,...