The Man in the Iron Mask

Intermittently exciting "Musketeers" tale, highlighted by the "Jekyll-Hyde" performance of Louis Hayward as the King of France and his undiscovered (then, discovered) twin brother. Mr. Hayward does a great job; especially when the "Good" twin confronts the "Evil" twin with his "Iron Mask".

"The Man in the Iron Mask" might have been better as a swashbuckling horror story; and, director James Whale could have delivered the goods. The Iron Mask of the title is designed for Edgar Allen Poe-type horror… it is locked around a Hayward's neck, so that he will slowly be strangled by his own beard. A gruesome death! I expected a little more excitement, and suspense, in this film.

The other characters are enjoyable; Joseph Schildkraut was my favorite supporting character. Joan Bennett is the beautiful love interest, but she doesn't have much of an opportunity to show any acting skills. By the way, her scene in the coach shows her looking very much like Scarlet O'Hara from "Gone with the Wind." After seeing her in this, you can picture her testing for Scarlett.

******* The Man in the Iron Mask (6/26/39) James Whale ~ Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, Joseph Schildkraut, Warren William

All positive comments are agreed to. This is truly one of the finest ones. The only minor dig that I could come up with is that they could have had more dueling sequences. Louis Hayward was capable of more robust fencing than what was portrayed here and I don't think they utilized his skills to any great degree. Outside of that this is a truly enjoyable film, black and white or not and while I don't advocate doing every B/W film over by colorizing it, I think I would like to see what this one Australia, What Guy Pearce Remake??????? Guy Pearce did Count of Monte Cristo, not M.I.T.I.M. as far as I have been able to determine.

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.

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.

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.