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. well. In July 2001, Downey pleaded no contest to the Palm Springs charges, avoiding jail time. Instead, he was sent into drug rehabilitation and received three years of probation, benefiting from the California Proposition 36, which had been passed the year before with the aim of helping nonviolent drug offenders overcome their addictions instead of sending them to jail. The book "Conversations with Woody Allen" reports that director Woody Allen wanted to cast Downey and Winona Ryder in his film "Melinda and Melinda" in 2005, but was unable to do so, because he could not get insurance on them, stating,