TheLittleSongbird
I have always been fond of The Three Musketeers, Man in the Iron Mask and of the swash-buckling tales in general. The Man in the Iron Mask(1939) shows perfectly why. Some of the effects are on the dated side and while looking gorgeous I found for my tastes Joan Bennett to be too blithe. However, the sumptuous costumes and sets more than make amends, as does the stirring score, beautiful cinematography, sword play that is as far away from clumsy as you can get and James Whale's direction, which is suitably sympathetic without it ever been plodding or overly-flamboyant. The script is witty and intelligent and the story is as compelling as you'd expect. Bennett aside, the performances are great. The Musketeers are well done and it was nice seeing Peter Cushing in his screen debut, but for me the standouts were the malevolent Fouquet of Joseph Schildkaut, Warren William's noble D'Artagnan and the altogether riveting dual-role performance of Louis Hayward as the arrogant, cruel Louis and the gentle, romantically helplessness of Phillippe. All in all, a swash-buckling adventure classic of the highest order. 9/10 Bethany Cox
Robert J. Maxwell
Fast-paced version of A. Dumas' complicated tale of intrigue, power, love, kinship and whatnot in the court of Louis XIV in the mid 1700s. When I say complicated, I mean complicated.Louis XIII (Albert Dekker in a tiny role) is King of France and needs an heir to the throne. To his dismay, his feckless wife gives birth to twins. Well, you can't have TWO heirs to the throne, so the younger of the two babies, Philippe (who grows up to be Louis Hayward), is sent packing to be adopted and raised by D'Artingnan, one of the original four musketeers, now living in the boondocks. No one must know of his true identity, says Dekker -- besides himself, his wife, his trusted adviser Colbert (Walter Kingsford), and D'Artagnan himself. There is a slight problem because the Queen was attended by a doctor and midwife. "Too bad there is no D'Artagnon for the doctor and the midwife," remarks Kingsford a little sadly, before having them dispatched, and the audience is permitted to shake its head in sympathy.The good King passes on, pari passu, where one hopes he's lucky enough to run into the souls of the departed doctor and midwife.Then it REALLY gets anfractuous. There's a lot of whispering, plenty of secrets, men tip-toeing behind screens to eavesdrop, a face listening on the other side of the door, one of those keys that is worn around the neck and must be stolen while its owner sleeps, secret passages under the palace, the gallop of pursuing horses behind the desperately fleeing stagecoach, the fencing mêlée, the impostor mistaken for the real thing, the confused mail-order Spanish bride out of "The Prisoner of Zenda." The Louis Hayward who has become King of France is a real mean son of gun. His staring eyes pop. His mouth is shaped into a half-mad grin. When someone challenges his authority he leaps to his feet and shouts "L'Etat, C'est moi!" in English. I wonder if he really said that. I thought the conviction was limited to American presidents. Come to think of it, Joseph Schildkraut plays the oily Fouqet, toady to the venomous King, and he says, "In this case, we must all hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately." I never read Dumas' novel, only flipped through it when I was a child, looking for risqué parts. But I don't believe Dumas wrote that. I think it was an American who said it, maybe Benjamin Franklin or Abe Lincoln. Do I have to Google it? Well -- if you insist. (Franklin.) Joseph Schildkraut probably gives the best performance. He's outrageous but it's in keeping with the nature of the plot and the tempo of its presentation. There are many other familiar names in the cast -- Schildkraut was perhaps better known in the theater than on the screen, though he was quite good as Anne Frank's father -- but the roles are rather small.Enough digression. Let me wind up that abstract of the plot. The bad Louis Hayward winds up drowning while wearing the iron mask he'd fashioned for his brother. (That mask is a pretty hideous artifact too.) The good Louis Hayward assumes the other's identity, marries the beautiful Spanish princess, repeals all taxes, cleanses the money-grubbing banks of their miscreant scum, outlaws smoking of tobacco in any form but permits marijuana, decrees that all citizens over 40 are now UNDER 40 so no Social Security or Medicare payments will be necessary, takes a vow of poverty even at the expense of his marriage, and goes about washing the naked feet of beggars in Paris.James Whale, the bisexual Englishman, directed it all with an entertaining dash you might not have expected from the man who brought us "Frankenstein."
vitaleralphlouis
This timeless classic played regularly for 3 decades in theaters and on TV, and spawned a few sequels. But the original is just perfect.Technically they didn't have Democrats in either 1650 or bad ones in 1939, but who isn't reminded of them in the scene when bad king Louis says, "The peasants revolt against the salt tax, aye. DOUBLE IT!" This to support his hateful and treacherous regime while "the people" are starving. Louis will tell any lie. twist any purpose, while preening in the mirror. A male Nancy Polosi. Dread the thought! Meanwhile his twin brother Phillip lives among the people unaware of his royal birth. In time he will enter the castle and when he is king he is pure Republican, ever sensitive to the real needs of the people, Phillip repeals the hated Salt Tax and two other severe taxes as well -- returning the wealth to the people.Thank God we had producers like Edward Small, directors like James Whale, and great actors like Louis Hayward in 1939 -- still alive and well on VHS. The remake by Jerry Bruckheimer a few years ago isn't even a bad memory in 2008; but this 1939 film clings to life after 69 years.
willrams
I was 13 years old when I first saw this, and since then they have made the same picture more than four times. What a great historial pic of Louis XIV of France and D'Artagnan and his three musketeers. Guess who plays the part of the Count (the twin brother in the mask)? Leland Hayward; the female lead was Joan Bennett. Off-the-cuff Joseph Schildkraut plays the meany in this movie, (his nephew Paul Gersowitz, whom I met in 1982 in Santa Barbara, and I became close friends). If you like mystery and action this is great! 7+
