Watch The Man in the Iron Mask For Free

The Worst Film Ever

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A Disappointing Continuation

"The Man in the Iron Mask", from the pen of Alexandre Dumas is a rousing adventure featuring treachery, double crossing with swash buckling aplenty thrown in.In the mid 16th century, twin sons are born to King Louis XIII (Albert Dekker) of France. Only one can be heir to the throne. The birth of the second twin is to be kept a secret. Only the king, the mid wife, doctor and faithful servant Colbert (Walter Kingsfprd) are in on the secret. But alas Cardinal's messenger, the ambitious Fouquet (Joseph Schildkraut) overhears the secret while in hiding. The King calls for his loyal guard D'Artagnon (Warren William) and charges him with the raising of the second twin named Phillippe.Fast forward twenty years and Twin no. 1 has become King Louis XIV (Louis Hayward) who has been over taxing the people while conducting a reign of terror. Phillippe (also Hayward) has become the swash buckling adopted son of D'Artagnon and the Three Musketeers, Porthos (Alan Hale), Aramis (Miles Mander) and Athos (Bert Roach).Louis is to marry Spanish princess Maria Theresa (Joan Bennett) for political purposes. Meanwhile Louis has a mistress Mlle. de la Valliere (Marion Martin) on the side. Phillipe and the Musketeers are arrested by the King's guards (Harry Woods, Peter Cushing). They are brought before the King where Louis and Phillippe discover that they are twin brothers a fact that is verified by their mother Queen Anne (Doris Kenyon).Louis meanwhile has learned of plot to assassinate him while attending a religious ceremony at the Cathedral. Louis decides to send Phillippe in his place while the Musketeers remain imprisoned. Phillippe meets Maria Theresa and she is smitten with his kindness and attitude toward the people unaware the he is not the King. When she again meets with Louis, she is confused by his sudden return to ruthlessness. At one point she decides to return to Spain but Fouquet murders her courier and she is forced to remain.Louis sees that his brother is a threat to the throne and decides to have him executed. Colbert, convinces him that he cannot do so because of tradition and their likeness. With Foubert's help. Louis devises an iron mask to be placed on Phillippe's head with the hope that his growing beard will eventually choke him. He is then cast into the Bastille on a life sentence.Meantime, the Musketeers manage to escape from the Bastille and set about to free Phillippe. In a touch of irony they manage to exchange Louis for Phillippe with Louis being placed in the iron mask. However, Fouquet learns of this and sends his guard (under Lane Chandler), to free Louis. Princess Maria Theresa meanwhile has learned of the true identity of Phillippe and pledges him her love.In a showdown with Louis and Fouquet, Phillippe and the musketeers are forced to engage in a battle to the death with superior forces and.........................................................This film was one of many versions of the Dumas story. It had been filmed as "The Iron Mask" in 1929 as Douglas Fairbanks final silent. Louis Hayward is surprisingly adept in the dual role of the twins. Joseph Schildkraut makes a slimy hissable villain. Joan Bennett looks beautiful as the heroine but has little else to do. Warren William while no Fairbanks, acquits himself well as D'Artagnon. The other Musketeers are largely in the background.Watch for veteran silent villain Montagu Love as the Spanish Ambassador and horror veteran Dwight Frye as Fouquet's valet.

For the record, the film under review is universally considered the best and most "exhilarating" (to quote the late eminent British critic Leslie Halliwell) version, even if Whale himself apparently was not that fond of it (by this time, he had lost favor with the Hollywood bigwigs and basically had resigned himself to be a director-for-hire!). Still, I completely disagree with his unenthusiastic appraisal – as this is certainly one of his most impressive non-horror efforts and easily ranks among the Top 10 Swashbucklers ever to come out of Hollywood! The film was an independent production courtesy of Edward Small: he had already financed the definitive 1934 version of Dumas' THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (likewise a cinematic staple and a personal Holy Grail for me before finally watching it some 3 years ago) and would subsequently make the 1941 rendition of THE CORSICAN BROTHERS (again inspired by a Dumas tale and, like IRON MASK itself, involving twin protagonists). In fact, he would be the force behind no less than 7 swashbucklers throughout his career, including 2 original sequels to MONTE CRISTO – both, incidentally, starring the lead of this one i.e. Louis Hayward! Despite not having the backing of a major studio, the movie lasts for a generous 112 minutes (the IMDb mistakenly lists this as 96 but, then, it is 110 according to the "Leonard Maltin Movie Guide" and, as per the afore-mentioned Halliwell tome, 119!) and looks terrific indeed: sets are expansive, costumes lavish and the cinematography splendid. However, two other contributing factors to the film's overall success is a literate script by George Bruce and a remarkable (if essentially low-key) roster of actors to play the extensive cast of characters. Warren William is D'Artagnan and Alan Hale, Bert Roach and Miles Mander The Three Musketeers (from yet another Dumas perennial) – interestingly, the same year as this film saw a rather good musical spoof adaptation of that novel, but the best-remembered version was still 9 years away! To get back to Hale for a moment, his Porthos here came hot on the heels of another beloved folk character i.e. Robin Hood's best-known sidekick Little John – incidentally, his real-life son would recreate the elder Hale's 1939 role both in LADY IN THE IRON MASK (1952; in which Louis Hayward himself is now D'Artagnan) and in the inferior big-screen remake of IRON MASK retitled THE FIFTH MUSKETEER (1979; and which actually followed this very viewing)!! Joan Bennett had not yet attained artistic maturity (which would come via her noir phase during the next decade), Joseph Schildkraut makes for a wonderful dastardly villain, Walter Kingsford is a vaguely familiar character actor here relishing the opportunity to tackle a sizeable characterization, while Montagu Love is something of a genre fixture(!), Albert Dekker has an small but important early part as King Louis XIII and, though similarly restricted to the prologue, this was Nigel De Brulier's fourth and final appearance as Cardinal Richelieu since 1921 (and which had included the 1929 version of the same source material!). Finally, for horror-movie buffs, Whale regular Dwight Frye and future Hammer stalwart Peter Cushing (his debut!) turn up in bit parts here: though the former's is a speaking part (appearing as Schildkraut's valet), he receives no credit, whereas the latter – who only gets a couple of medium shots as one of the many soldiers at a tavern brawl – does!Anyway, the film throws in a variety of elements and, while it may stress some at the expense of others (notably romance and court intrigue vis-a'-vis its sporadic bursts of action), to my mind, there is little cause for complaint. That is unless one carps for a duel between the two Haywards, which was added for THE FIFTH MUSKETEER – a film that generally followed the George Bruce script here so scrupulously that his name ranks beside that of Dumas in the credits! As for the notion that Whale was so disinterested that he failed to imbue the film with any of his distinctive touches, suffice to say that the prison sequences feature shadowy lighting and a whipping (that particularly evokes a similar scene in FRANKENSTEIN [1931]), while the regal Hayward sensibly despairing – there's an oxymoron for you! – of being strangled by his overgrown hair once his head has been trapped in the (appealingly-designed) mask is a sure-fire display of his recognizable caustic wit (recalling THE INVISIBLE MAN [1933]'s observation that, to avert detection, he must be spotlessly clean at all times); another more broadly comic scene finds William hamming it up in the fashion of John Barrymore posing as Kingsford's doddering servant when soldiers arrive to arrest him. The climax, then, surprisingly sees the death of all four Musketeers, a driverless coach careening off the edge of a cliff, and the union (blessed with mutual love when once it was to be solely a marriage of convenience) between Spaniard Bennett and the 'new' French King.Interestingly, having recently rewatched Luis Bunuel's swan-song THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977), I was reminded of the ambivalent nature of its heroine during those scenes where Bennett here is confounded by the apparent contradictions within the personality of foppish King Louis XIV (who is to marry her against his will, whereas the more down-to-earth twin exhibits affection and consideration). By the way, another classic swashbuckler to split the central role was THE PRISONER OF ZENDA – whose finest incarnation emerged in 1937 and numbered among its cast Montagu Love! Finally, the TCM-sourced copy I watched sported rather low audio (so that I had to take the volume practically to the maximum in order to hear the dialogue) and, unfortunately, also suffered from a handful of minor jump-cuts!

THE MAN IN THE IRON mask begins with the Queen of France giving birth to identical twins. However, the father (Louis XIII) is afraid having twins might destabilize the country and possibly lead to civil war, so he gives custody of the child to D'Artagnan. He is to raise the boy with no knowledge that he is a member of the royalty.Many years pass and by now, Louis XIV is on the throne and he's a selfish and weak leader--led around by his conniving adviser, Fouquet. Under Louis' rule, the country is is dire poverty while this young king lives for his own demented pleasures (such as watching men hang). Later, when Louis' identical brother is identified, Louis brings him to the court for all sorts of boring intrigues--none of which particularly help the story. Later, after tiring of the brother, Louis orders an iron mask to be created and the brother is forced to wear it while imprisoned in the Bastille. So now it's up to the good people in the government and the Four Musketeers to rescue the brother and substitute him in Louis' place for the good of the nation.THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK is very, very loosely based on part of the story "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" by Alexandre Dumas. And, from what I have read about the original tale by Dumas, none of the movie versions have much to do with the novel. Plus, the real life Louis XIV was a selfish jerk during ALL of his reign, so unless the identical twin was also a total scumbag, it's unlikely any switch every occurred! As a great fan of the 1977 version starring Richard Chamberlain, I was disappointed by the script. Since none of the films stick very close to the facts, it's not like preferring the later version is necessarily a bad thing. My biggest complaint about this 1939 version is that the plot, particularly at the end, is amazingly anticlimactic and convoluted. Instead of a single and fitting ending, the film is drawn out needlessly further. Plus, the acting in the later version just seemed more interesting and the plot more compact and enjoyable.

I have seen the many other versions of this story, but I had never even heard of this one, directed by the great James Whale, which is surprising in itself. I must say without qualification it is certainly the best of them all. Louis Hayward is excellent as the twins, and the scenes with the 2 twins together rival anything Hollyweed can do now, only done much more simply and directly. They don't even look like matte shots. And the scenes with Hayward in an iron mask rival any of Whale's horror films simply in their superb use of lighting for effect. Just goes to show further what a superb craftsman he was, and how he was comfortable in any genre. The supporting cast is fine, though frankly I never found Joan Bennett interesting, she does well here. And stalwarts like Schildkraut and Hale do their usual fine work. Frankly I thing Warren William is highly overrated in the other reviews here. Yes, he does a creditable job, but no better than any others in the supporting cast. Personally, I think Whale's direction is the real star here, effective without being overly flamboyant. He could have easily rivaled Cukor or any of his other gay contemporaries' work, but unfortunately he insisted on being honest and open about who he was. Something that is frowned upon even today.