The Iron Mask
The Iron Mask | |
---|---|
Directed by | Allan Dwan |
Written by | Douglas Fairbanks Jack Cunningham |
Based on | The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later 1848–50 by Alexandre Dumas |
Produced by | Douglas Fairbanks |
Starring | Douglas Fairbanks Belle Bennett Marguerite De La Motte Dorothy Revier Vera Lewis Rolfe Sedan William Bakewell |
Cinematography | Henry Sharp |
Edited by | William Nolan |
Music by | Hugo Riesenfeld |
Production company | |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 95 minutes |
Country | United States |
Languages | Part-Talkie English intertitles |
Box office | $1.5 million[1] |
The Iron Mask is a 1929 American part-talkie adventure film directed by Allan Dwan. In addition to some sequences with dialogue, the film featured a synchronized musical score with sound effects and a theme song.
The film is an adaptation of the last section of the 1847-1850 novel
Plot
The film stars Fairbanks as d'Artagnan,
Cast
- D'Artagnan
- Belle Bennett – The Queen Mother
- Marguerite De La Motte – Constance Bonacieux
- Dorothy Revier – Milady de Winter
- Vera Lewis – Madame Peronne
- Rolfe Sedan – Louis XIII
- William Bakewell – Louis XIV/Twin Brother
- Gordon Thorpe – Young Prince/Twin Brother
- Nigel De Brulier – Cardinal Richelieu
- Ullrich Haupt– Count De Rochefort
- Lon Poff – Father Joseph: the Queen's Confessor
- Charles Stevens – Planchet: D'Artagnan's Servant
- Henry Otto – the King's Valet
- Leon Bary– Athos
- Tiny Sandford – Porthos (*Stanley J. Sandford)
- Gino Corrado – Aramis
Music
The film featured a theme song entitled “One For All — All For One (Song Of The Musketeers)” which was composed by Jo Trent (words) and Hugo Riesenfeld and Louis Alter (music). The song is sung on the soundtrack and is played instrumentally several times throughout the film.
Production background
The 1929 part-talkie, entitled The Iron Mask, was the first talking picture starring Douglas Fairbanks.
Fairbanks lavished resources on his first sound film with the knowledge he was bidding farewell to his beloved genre. This marks the only time where Fairbanks'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 has only two short sequences of dialogue which consisted of speeches delivered by Fairbanks. The rest of the film features a musical score with a few sound effects and a theme song that is sung and played several times.
In 1952, the film was reissued, with the
In 1999, with the cooperation of the
Reception and legacy
Fairbanks Biographer Jeffrey Vance has opined, "As a valedictory to the silent screen, The Iron Mask is unsurpassed. In one of his few departures from playing a young man—and with fewer characteristic stunts—Fairbanks conjures up his most multi-dimensional and moving screen portrayal in a film that is perhaps the supreme achievement of its genre."[4]
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0-299-23004-3. p93
- ^ The Iron Mask at silentera.com
- ^ The American Film Institute Catalog Feature Film: 1921–30 by The American Film Institute, c. 1971
- ISBN 978-0-520-25667-5.
Further reading
- Vance, Jeffrey. Douglas Fairbanks. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-520-25667-5.
External links
- The Iron Mask at IMDb– 1929
- The Iron Mask is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
- The Iron Mask at Rotten Tomatoes