Man in the Iron Mask has also been proposed as the man in the mask. A Protestant, he led a rebellion against his uncle, the Catholic King James II. The rebellion failed and Monmouth was executed in 1685. But in 1768, a writer named Saint-Foix claimed that another man was executed in his place and that Monmouth became the masked prisoner, it being in Louis XIV's interests to assist a fellow Catholic like James who would not necessarily want to kill his own nephew. Saint-Foix's case was based on unsubstantiated rumours and allegations that Monmouth's execution was faked. Other popular suspects have included men known
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