The Man in the Iron Mask (1998 film) Louis XIV and attempts to explain the mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask, using a plot more closely related to the flamboyant 1929 version starring Douglas Fairbanks, "The Iron Mask", and the 1939 version directed by James Whale, than to the original Dumas book. Like the 1998 version, the two aforementioned adaptations were also released through United Artists. In 1662, the Kingdom of France faces bankruptcy from King Louis XIV's wars against the Dutch Republic, which has left the country's agriculture impeded by a heavy tax burden and forced the citizens to live on rotten food. Though the
The Man in the Iron Mask (1998 film) at a real and actual event the "fête de Vaux" (17 August 1661), a famous party for the unveiling of the new château. The party was attended by Louis XlV, who realized that the king's own palace was seen as inferior to the new château of his non-royal finance minister. The famous fête led to the downfall of Fouquet and the building of Versailles. The novel and the filmed versions of the tale have some differences in how they portray the royal twins and the plot to switch them. In Alexandre Dumas's "The Vicomte de Bragelonne", although the plot to