La maschera di ferro

An interesting combination of history , fiction and romance blended together by Writer /director and actor William Richert make for an interesting plot. Of particular interest is the fact that this movie is an extremely low budget film(less than $500,00) and shows you that a good movie need not be a big budget picture to be intertaining and good.

Quite amazing is how many actors appear in the film. You will recognize many big name stars like Meg ter( Cagney and Lacey) and James Gammon( Nash Bridges). among others. An interesting note is that River Phoenix was going to play the part of the twin brothers Phillippe and Louie.

In a few places the sound could have been better and a few actors are a bit weak in their characterization, but that is more than made up by very strong performances from Edward albert, Timothy Bottom and William Richert.

The costumes, make up and background sets are quite spectacular considering it was filmed at present day locations. I understand a second version may soon be released with some added special effects and actually an 'appearence' by the original writer of the plot, A lexandre Dumas. It is a fun , romantic, swash buckling, and entertaining movie.