The Iron Mask

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The Iron Mask

Directed by	Allan Dwan
Written by	Jack Cunningham Alexandre Dumas (novel) Douglas Fairbanks
Starring	Belle Bennett, Douglas Fairbanks, Marguerite De La Motte Dorothy Revier Vera Lewis Rolfe Sedan William Bakewell
Release date(s)	1929
Running time	95 min
Country	United States
Language	silent film English intertitles
IMDb profile

The Iron Mask is a 1929 silent film adaptation of the last section of the novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, père, which is itself based on the French legend of The Man in the Iron Mask.

[edit] Overview

The 1929 silent version, titled The Iron Mask, was the last silent film produced by, and starring, Douglas Fairbanks. 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.

The original 1929 release, though 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.

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 disk 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.