Man in the Iron Mask Dumas also presented a review of the popular theories about the prisoner extant in his time in the chapter "L'homme au masque de fer" in the sixth volume of his non-fiction "Crimes Célèbres". The earliest surviving records of the masked prisoner are from late July 1669, when Louis XIV's minister, the Marquis de Louvois, sent a letter to Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars, governor of the prison of Pignerol, which at the time was part of France. In his letter, Louvois informed Saint-Mars that a prisoner named "Eustache Dauger" was due to arrive in the next month or so. Louvois instructed
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