The Man in the Iron Mask **** (1977, Richard Chamberlain, Patrick McGoohan, Louis Jourdan) – Classic Movie Review 2320

The dashing Richard Chamberlain swashes a fine buckle in director Mike Newell’s rousing 1977 British TV movie remake of the Alexandre Dumas père classic. It was released in cinemas in a number of countries, including Denmark, Hungary, East Germany and West Germany.

It follows the famous story of the foppish French king Louis XIV, who has kept the rightful heir to the throne, his athletic identical twin brother Philippe, imprisoned in the Bastille since childhood in the iron mask, out of sight and knowledge of the public. Louis Jourdan plays the Musketeer D’Artagnan, who learns of the deception and sets out to rescue Philippe and restore him to the throne by engineering a plot to replace Louis with Philippe.

As well as Chamberlain in both roles of Philippe and Louis XIV, Jourdan as D’Artagnan and Patrick McGoohan as the wily courtier Nicolas Fouquet, the strong and expert cast of mostly British stalwart performers cuts a real dash.

The other stars of the movie are Jenny Agutter (as Louise de la Valliere), Vivien Merchant (as Maria Theresa, in her final feature film), Ian Holm as Duval and Ralph Richardson as Colbert. Also in the cast are Brenda Bruce as Anne of Austria, Esmond Knight, Godfrey Quigley, Emrys James, Hugh Fraser and Denis Lawson (in his debut feature film).

William Bast’s screenplay, Olga Lehmann’s costumes, Freddie Young’s cinematography and Allyn Ferguson’s score are all first rate. Writer Bast and costume designer Olga Lehmann were Emmy nominated.

It’s got to be counted as a fine version of the story and a top of the range historical adventure TV movie. It is the twelfth film version of Dumas père’s novel The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, first serialised between 1847 and 1850 (French title Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus tard). The movie is unusual in that it includes only d’Artagnan of the original Musketeers and eliminates the three Musketeers from the book, including the character of Aramis played in three movies by Chamberlain. In the novel, the plot to replace Louis with Philippe is engineered and executed by Aramis with unwitting aid by Porthos.

The French Vaux-le-Vicomte chateau of the real-life Nicolas Fouquet was used for the grand ball finale sequence.

Chamberlain appeared in film adaptations of all three of Alexandre Dumas père’s Musketeer novels. He played Aramis in The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge (1974) and The Return of the Musketeers (1989), and played Louis and Philippe in The Man in the Iron Mask (1977). He also starred as Edmond Dantes in Dumas père’s The Count of Monte-Cristo (1975), with Louis Jourdan as De Villefort.

Chamberlain finally came out at the age of 69 with a tell-all biography entitled Shattered Love, in which he candidly discusses the anguish of hiding his homosexuality to protect his matinée idol image.

The Man in the Iron Mask was previously made in James Whale’s 1939 classic with Louis Heyward. It was remade in 1985 as a TV movie, and again twice in 1998, one with Leonardo DiCaprio and one with Timothy Bottoms, and also used as the basis for 1978’s The Fifth Musketeer.

Louis Jourdan, the debonair French leading man who was brought to Hollywood by producer David O Selznick in 1947 to appear in Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case, died on February 14 2015, aged 93. He famously starred in Gigi with Leslie Caron and played the smooth villain Khan in the James Bond movie Octopussy.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2320

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