Directed by Allan Dwan
Written by Douglas Fairbanks (uncredited) from novels by Alexandre Dumas
1929/US
Elton Corporation/United Artists
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)
Porthos: Come on! There is greater adventure beyond.
Douglas Fairbanks’ final silent movie is a solid adventure with the customary Fairbanskian wit and flair.
The story begins during the reign of Louis XIII of France. He is anxiously awaiting the birth of what he hopes will be a son and heir. He gets a son, two in fact. No one is aware of the birth of the twin except Constance, D’Artagnan’s (Fairbanks) lady love and lady in wait to the Queen, the Queen herself and the dastardly Cardinal Richelieu and De Rochefort. The latter plot to silence the ladies and take control of the second twin in hopes of destabilizing France.
D’Artagnanan and his bosom buddies the three musketeers serve the King with utmost loyalty. Constance is killed and her dying words are “the other one”. This puzzles him for quite some time.
Eventually Louis the XIII dies and the elder of the twins takes the throne as Louis the XIV. That is when De Rochefort trots out the younger, meaner, twin. The real King is sent to a riverside castle where he is made to live in a dungeon wearing an iron mask that disguises his identity. He finds a way to reach out to the musketeers and much swashbuckling ensues.
Fairbanks was already 46 when he made this but he could still swash a mean buckle. The antics of the musketeers kept me engaged the entire time. The music on the Amazon version did not do the film any favors in my opinion. Much of it was modern sounding. The film is in the public domain and many versions are available for free on YouTube.
A friend of mine wanted to watch a few silent movies because he’s seen so few I’ve seen a lot of them. I got him to watch a couple of my favorites – Our Hospitality and Judith of Bethuliah – but mostly we watched films I had never seen either.
Turns out he likes Mary Pickford, so we watched My Best Gal and Stella Maris.
We also watched Underworld and Tol’able David.
But WOW were we blown away by The Iron Mask! He said it was his favorite silent film. I think it’s my favorite Fairbanks.
It is very good! I tried to watch The Crowd, my favorite silent film, today and it was gone, gone, gone. None of my legit streaming modes had it.
The Crowd is great! I saw it at a revival house in Los Angeles on a double bill with Sunrise.
My favorite silent film is Pandora’s Box.
Sunrise and The Crowd – what a double bill! Pandora’s Box is high on my list of silents as well.