The Man in the Iron Mask

In seventeenth-century France, the tyrannical King Louis XIV rules without restraint. D'Artagnan, once a comrade of the king's late father, has raised Louis's identical twin brother, Philippe, in secret. When the king learns that his double exists, he has Philippe imprisoned and an iron mask fixed over his face so that the two can never be confused. The former musketeers, D'Artagnan among them, are the only men who know the truth about the prisoner, and they set out to free him and to end the king's abuses. The story is drawn from Alexandre Dumas's novel of the same name.

James Whale directed the film, the fifth of the features he made in the 1930s and the last title listed here after Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein. George Bruce wrote the screenplay, and Edward Small produced it for United Artists. Louis Hayward plays both brothers, with Joan Bennett as the Spanish princess Maria Theresa, Warren William as D'Artagnan, and Joseph Schildkraut, Alan Hale and Walter Kingsford among a credited cast of thirty-seven. On TMDB it holds a rating of 7 out of 10 from 39 votes.