Der Mann mit der eisernen Maske

James Whale, when he wasn't doing horror films which set trends, or the occasional musical, went literary with this entertaining adaptation of the famous French novel.

Old hands are involved - Warren William, Alan Hale - as part of the quartet of ageing musketeers, and do the production credit. South-African born matinée idol Louis Hayward plays both the twins admirably and pretty Joan Bennett does her usual turn which she could do in her sleep (as the princess betrothed to the bad twin and in love with the good twin).

The film veers from some very funny moments to some sweet romantic scenes between the good twin and the foreign princess, and the different characters of the twins are well portrayed. There are also a number of excellent performances in the supporting cast. With all this (and Whale's surreal imagination) you can forgive the odd lapse away from Dumas' original vision. Good stuff indeed.

There have been many versions over the years of the fanciful story, "The Man in the Iron Mask," the most recent one being the 1998 film starring Leonardo di Caprio. Back in the late 1970s, Richard Chamberlain took a stab at it, with highly entertaining results.

This particular version was directed to great effect by the talented James Whale, who gives us a fast, energetic, and athletic telling of the story of twins separated at birth, one who will be King of France and one who does not know that he is royalty. The twins are played by Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett is Maria Theresa, Josef Schildkraut is Fouquet, and Warren William leads the Musketeers as D'Artagnan. As one post on this board mentions, the Musketeers are getting up there in age here; Alan Hale, Miles Mander, and Bert Roach are the heroic swordsmen and friends.

It's important always that a good actor plays twins so that they have different personalities. This often is not the case. One may be mean and one may be good, but they talk the same, look the same, act the same etc. Louis Hayward does a fantastic job in his dual roles. As the arrogant King, he is foppish, cruel, dismissive and lustful. As Philip of Gascony, he is gentle and unassuming with a very different demeanor and even a different vocal timber. Hayward was a very smooth actor. It's not exactly clear what happened to his career and why he ended up in the '60s doing spaghetti westerns. Apparently this film set him up for a resume of playing twins, which he gamely did, finally becoming a very successful producer.

Although she was no match in acting for Vivien Leigh, anyone who has seen the "Gone With the Wind" screen tests knows what a beautiful Scarlett Joan Bennett would have made. She's stunning here as the confused Maria Theresa in glorious costumes, with her serene smile, porcelain skin and beautiful bone structure. Warren William, an early leading man who was the movie Perry Mason, is very likable and does well with the athletic sword fighting as D'Artagnan. Having been a leading man when talkies began, by this time he was moving into character roles. With his pencil-thin mustache, he was a familiar presence in films until his death in 1948 at the age of 54.

This is a wonderful movie, a nice remembrance of the good old Hollywood period pieces, when they really knew how to do them. Look for a young Peter Cushing as a King's messenger.

"The Man in the Iron Mask" is adapted from the volume by Alexander Dumas. The premise of the film is that King Louis XIV of France had an identical twin brother, who eventually becomes "the man in the iron mask". Also involved in the story are D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers carried over from Dumas' novel "The Three Musketeers".

Louis Hayward is equally excellent as the ineffectual King Louis XIV and his twin, the kindhearted Philippe. Joan Bennett is charming as Maria Theresa, slated to be Queen of France. Joseph Schildkraut is notable as the Machiavellian adviser Fouquet and Walter Kingsford also gives a commendable performance as rival adviser Colbert. Warren William gives the best performance of the Musketeers as the noble D'Artagnan, but the other Musketeers are well-portrayed.

This film features superb sets, scenes, costumes and a score to match. Some of the special effects work is noticeably dated, but is overall fine. The story is interesting and well-paced and doesn't suffer the slow patches that some other adventure films of the era do. It should be noted that this film features some action scenes, but viewers looking for a number of swordfights would probably do better with another film. The action scenes that were included were certainly well-made. Overall, "The Man in the Iron Mask" proves to be an interesting hypothetical story set in the time of Louis XIV.

All in all, a solid film with some excellent cinematography, uniformly excellent cast and good direction (except the romantic scenes--James Whale always was a bit stiff in that department). I thought the musical score was just adequate, even though it was nominated for an Oscar that year.

Blink and you miss Albert Dekker (credited) at the opening and Peter Cushing (credited and his first screen appearance) as one of the soldiers in the scene where the soldiers first encounter the musketeers (Cushing has no lines). Dwight Frye (not credited) can be spotted as a valet about 3/4's of the way in. He has a few lines but we are so used to seeing him as "Fritz" in Whale's Frankenstein movies that he's not easy to recognize (he's a little heavier looking in this film for one thing).

Hayward was a good choice for the dual roles. A good actor, there was always something rather unpleasant at times about his looks while at other times he looked quite handsome--I think he was used to great advantage here for that reason.

Almost all the leads were independent artists, not contracted to any particular studio, so it was rather weird seeing Warners' top character man Alan Hale in this (not that they give him a whole lot to do!) I'm guessing that some footage from the 1920s version of this film with Douglas Fairbanks was incorporated into at least one scene--the king showing the newborn prince from his balcony early in the film.

After seeing this, I began to wonder if Stan Lee or Jack Kirby did not draw inspiration for their "Dr. Doom" comic book character from the iron mask shown in this film.

James Whale has to be credited with some very fine direction on this version of THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, the famous story about the twin brothers, one of whom is a black-hearted rogue who sits on the throne, the other raised in a faraway village by D'Artagnan when it becomes clear that only one twin can sit on the throne of France.

All the ingredients for a good swashbuckler are here with the added benefit of an absorbing story, extremely well played by a wonderful cast. LOUIS HAYWARD has never had a better role than the contrasting twins and the special effects are excellent when he shares scenes with his twin. JOAN BENNETT, although very beautiful, is merely a costumed prop here, exuding no real warmth as the princess who falls in love with the good twin. She was never an actress of any depth.

But the film really belongs to WARREN WILLIAM as a rather overage D'Artagnan and even more so to Joseph SCHILDKRAUT in another one of his evil impersonations as Fouquet, with ambitions to become the Minister of Finance and an appetite for treachery.

Very lavish production values, although one wishes the film could have been filmed in Technicolor (at a time when very few films were). There's a good Oscar-nominated background score in the brisk tradition of such music and there's never a dull moment in the whole film.

Summing up: A majestic, impressive version of the tale which stands up to any subsequent telling in recent years.