La maschera di ferro

Though The Man In the Iron Mask is swashbuckling adventure at its finest it's hardly an accurate picture of the times. But Alexander Dumas was no more writing history here than he was in The Three Musketeers which in many ways this is the further adventures of.

Twin sons are born to Louis XIII and his wife Anne of Austria and in order to avoid dynastic rivalry, one of them is sent with the King's trusty right hand D'Artagnan to raise in his native Gascony. The other becomes the well known Louis XIV and ascends to the throne as a child of six.

Warren William is the aging, but still very capable D'Artagnan. In his scenes especially the film bares more than a slight resemblance to the version that Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. did as his last silent film. I would not be surprised if a lot of stock footage was incorporated here by producer Edward Small and director James Whale.

Louis Hayward essays the difficult dual role of both Louis XIV and his twin brother Phillip. Hayward's first big break came as Anita Louise's lover and Fredric March's father in Anthony Adverse where he lost a duel to Claude Rains. Hayward never lost too many screen duels after that though his swashbuckler parts that he mostly did after service in World War II never matched up to this.

Joseph Schildkraut and Walter Kingsford are the evenly matched pair of ministers vying for preeminence as Fouquet and Colbert. Colbert did in fact triumph, but not in the way as shown here. And Fouquet was a guy who liked to live high on the hog. In real life that's what actually brought him down.

The Man in the Iron Mask is an often filmed tale here in America, I'm sure the French have done many versions. For adventure and romance you can't beat it and this version is one of the best around.