joachimt-IMDB

Last month I bought a cheap DVD-box with 10 different movies. One of them was "The man in the iron mask". According to the info on the box it was the version with Richard Chamberlain and Ian Holm from 1977. Two great actors so I became very interested. During the movie I became more and more disappointed. Such a lame attempt to tell such a great story. And above all ... which version did I have bought. Production-year 1977 could be right, but no sign of Richard C. and Ian H.. So I went searching on IMDb: Not the 1985-version? Maybe 1968? No way I suspected this movie was made in the late 90's. Unbelievable!! How is it possible, that people actually put money in such a production. It seemed like the filmmakers tried to make the movie look bad.

So ... avoid this one!! ... and watch carefully when buying cheap DVD-boxes.

When you are rating a movie from the beginning of the 20th century, it's always hard to compare the quality and techniques with that of modern movies. "An artist's dream" is an early movie (1900) which shows a good attempt to explore the possibilities of this new art-form. The sudden appearances and disappearances of people in this movie are very well done. With one single camera-position (very common for those days) the discontinuities with the cuts can hardly be seen. The actors take one the right position to continue the act after the cut.

Although movies of that time have very bad quality, it's a great pleasure watching them, when they are made with such an originality as this one. It's worth every minute ...