Main Cast: Douglas Fairbanks, Belle Bennett, Nigel de Brulier, Marguerite de la Motte, Dorothy Revier, Vera Lewis, Rolfe Sedan
Release Year: 1929
Country: US
Run Time: 87 minutes
Plot
The Iron Mask was Douglas Fairbanks' sequel to his popular 1921 vehicle The Three Musketeers. Fairbanks returns to his original role of D'Artagnan, while Marguerite de La Motte and Nigel De Brulier briefly reprise their Musketeers roles as, respectively, Constance and Cardinal Richelieu. After tying up loose plot ends from the first film, the middle-aged D'Artagnan and his equally venerable fellow musketeers Athos (Leon Bary, also returning from the 1921 film), Porthos (Stanley J. "Tiny" Sandford) and Aramis (Gino Corrado) set about to rescue Louis XIV (William Bakewell), the rightful King of France. Louis XIV has been entombed in a dungeon by his twin brother (also Bakewell) and his head has been locked in an impenetrable iron mask. All of this is at the behest of the scheming De Rochefort (Ulrich Haupt), the real power behind the throne. The Iron Mask was Fairbanks' last silent film; perhaps in acknowledgment of the passing of a Golden era, Fairbanks "died" on screen for the first and only time in his career. Most currently available prints of Iron Mask are taken from the 1940 reissue, narrated by Douglas Fairbanks Jr; in 1974 the younger Fairbanks prepared a restored version of the original, including two brief dialogue passages filmed by Fairbanks back in 1929. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Burgess Beall - Art Director, Gilbert Clark - Costume Designer, Maurice Leloir - Costume Designer, Allan Dwan - Director, William Nolan - Editor, Hugo Riesenfeld - Composer (Music Score), Lou Alter - Songwriter, Ray Klages - Songwriter, Fred C. Ryle - Makeup, William Cameron Menzies - Production Designer, Maurice Leloir - Production Designer, Warren Lynch - Cinematographer, Henry Sharp - Cinematographer, Douglas Fairbanks - Producer, Walter Pallman - Special Effects, Edward Bernds - Sound Mixer, Douglas Fairbanks - Screenwriter, Elliot Thomas - Screenwriter, Lotta Woods - Screenwriter, Alexandre Dumas - Book Author
The 1929 part-talkie version, titled The Iron Mask, was the first talking picture starring Douglas Fairbanks, though until recently it was usually shown in an all-silent version. It starred Fairbanks as d'Artagnan, Marguerite De La Motte as his beloved Constance (who is killed early in the film to protect the secret that the King has a twin brother), Nigel De Brulier as the scheming Cardinal Richelieu, and Ulrich Haupt as the evil Count De Rochefort. William Bakewell appeared as the royal twins.
Fairbanks lavished resources on his final silent film, with the knowledge he was bidding farewell to his beloved genre. This marks the only time where Fairbank's character dies at the end of the film, with the closing scene depicting the once-again youthful Musketeers all reunited in death, moving on (as the final title says) to find "greater adventure beyond".
The original 1929 release, though mostly a silent film, actually had a soundtrack: two short speeches delivered by Fairbanks, and a musical score with a few sound effects. In 1952 it was reissued, with the printed intertitles removed and a narration voiced by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. added. The original film included a scene in which d'Artagnan tells the young King of an embarrassing adventure involving him and the three musketeers. The story is told in flashback but the 1952 version has it in chronological order with the scene with the King cut out.
In 1999, with the cooperation of the Library of Congress and the Museum of Modern Art, Kino Video released a DVD of the 1929 version. No film copy with the soundtrack of the Fairbanks speeches existed, but phonograph records of them did exist, so using digital techniques the sound from these was synchronized with film footage. For this reissue, a new score was commissioned from composer Carl Davis. The Kino disc also includes excerpts from the 1952 version, some outtakes from the original filming, and some textual background material from the program for the 1999 premiere showing of the reconstruction.
