Man in the Iron Mask Huguenot Roux de Marcilly. After his master's execution in 1669 the valet was taken to France, possibly by capture or subterfuge, and imprisoned because he might have known too much about his master's affairs. In "The Man of the Mask" (1908), Arthur Barnes presents James de la Cloche, the alleged illegitimate son of the reluctant Protestant Charles II of England, who would have been his father's secret intermediary with the Catholic court of France. Louis XIV could have imprisoned him because he knew too much about French affairs with England. One of Charles's confirmed illegitimate sons, the Duke of Monmouth,
The Man in the Iron Mask (1939 film) "an overfondness for pageantry and stiff heroics." He criticized the casting of Marion Martin as "outright absurd" and called her performance "artless" and "rather hopeless". "Variety" called the film "a highly entertaining adventure" with "excellent" direction. "Harrison's Reports" declared it "good mass entertainment" with a "charming" romance. "Film Daily" called it "a vivid picturization of Alexandre Dumas' novel" with Hayward's "best screen work to date." John Mosher of "The New Yorker" wrote, "The piece belongs to the old school of things and the Douglas Fairbanks of 1929, but Douglas Fairbanks is not here, and the swordplay, the hard riding, the