The Man in the Iron Mask (1939 film) insisted on Louis Hayward, who had just made "The Duke of West Point" for him. Louis Hayward played D'Artagnan in a gender-switched 1952 remake entitled "Lady in the Iron Mask" with Patricia Medina in the titular role and Alan Hale, Jr. as Porthos, the part his father Alan Hale, Sr. had portrayed in the 1939 version. In what may have been another instance of stunt casting, Hale Jr. played Porthos in the 1979 film "The Fifth Musketeer" (which is also based on "The Man in the Iron Mask"). Frank S. Nugent called the film "a moderately entertaining costume piece" with
Robert Downey Jr. the Brat Pack. In 1987, Downey played Julian Wells, a drug-addicted rich boy whose life rapidly spirals out of his control, in the film version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel "Less Than Zero". His performance, described by Janet Maslin in "The New York Times" as "desperately moving", was widely praised, though Downey has said that for him "the role was like the ghost of Christmas Future" since his drug habit resulted in his becoming an "exaggeration of the character" in real life. "Zero" drove Downey into films with bigger budgets and names, such as "Chances Are" (1989) with Cybill