Lady in the Iron Mask

In the 17th century, D'Artagnan, the former captain of Louis XIII's musketeers, is aboard a ship bound for America and bemoans the fact that he is married to a woman he does not love. As he ponders his fate, D'Artagnan remembers how he became embroiled in this predicament: After the king dies, France is thrown into turmoil, and the king's power-hungry brother-in-law, the Duc de Valdac, becomes regent. De Valdac plots to marry Princess Anne to the pliant Philip of Spain and wrest control from the ailing prime minister, Rochard.

The elegant Louis Hayward is at it again, wielding his epee as D'Artagnan in this 70 minutes swashbuckler that has buckets of horse chases, a dungeon, court intrigues and sword-and-fistfights and a woman in an iron mask. I mean, how could they cover Patricia Medina's beautiful face with an iron mask! Sacré bleu! It's a neat twist on the The man in the Iron mask and quite an entertaining one. It wastes no time in small talk and moves at a fair clip, and has a certain energy. The cinematography and music score is top notch. Nitpickers/Eagle-eyed critics might not like this, but I enjoyed it. Pity it wasn't in colour and maybe a longer time was needed for some suspense, especially around the dungeon scene.