Object of the week: Costume designs for the 1970s swashbuckler The Man in the Iron Mask
These sumptuous sketches by the Chilean-born British designer Olga Lehmann were created for the 1977 version of The Man in the Iron Mask, starring Richard Chamberlain, Jenny Agutter and Patrick McGoohan.
The wide-ranging career of visual artist Olga Lehmann encompassed everything from wartime underground factory murals to Radio Times covers to portraits in oils of Barbara Stanwyck and Charlton Heston for the American soap opera The Colbys.
Born in Chile in 1912 to European parents, she moved to the UK in 1929 and worked prolifically across the fields of painting, illustration, decorative art and design from the 1930s (when she graduated with honours from the Slade School of Art, later being interviewed about her experiences there) right through to the 1980s, after which she settled into retirement in rural Essex.
Within this rich portfolio of work, she worked extensively in film and, later, television across a diverse range of roles: scenic artist, muralist, portrait painter. She sketched storyboards and production designs, created painted backgrounds for credits, and later moved into art direction and costume design.
She began with some mural and portraiture work for the comedies Hi Gang! (1941) and Much Too Shy (1942), undertaken alongside her various wartime commissions. Post-war, Lehmann moved to a contracted artistic position at Associated British and, in 1955, made her first foray into screen costume design on Errol Flynn’s swashbuckling swansong The Dark Avenger – incidentally, having recently painted a mural for Flynn’s hotel in Jamaica.
Costume design became an increasingly important aspect of her art and design practice, on big-budget projects such as Tom Thumb (1958), The Guns of Navarone (1961) and Charlie Chaplin’s A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) – designing chic costumes for Tippi Hedren. But it may have been the particular aptitude Lehmann showed for period design on 1971’s Kidnapped that led to her being selected to oversee costumes for the ITC retelling of the famous Alexandre Dumas adventure The Man in the Iron Mask (1977).
Directed by Mike Newell, this powerful tale of French King Louis XIV’s imprisoned secret twin brother (never proven but widely believed lore) had been notably adapted for the screen before, as a 1929 Douglas Fairbanks vehicle and a 1939 swashbuckler directed by James Whale. This time Richard Chamberlain would play the dual role of pampered king and unfortunate twin, fresh from his success in Richard Lester’s musketeers films across 1973 and 1974 and the titular role in a further Dumas adaptation, The Count of Monte-Cristo (1975).
Louis Jourdan was cast as the mature D’Artagnan, assisting Chamberlain’s Philippe in his quest for freedom. Jenny Agutter was as pretty as a Fragonard as the steadfast Louise, while Patrick McGoohan was memorably dastardly as court schemer Fouquet.
These costume design sketches by Lehmann show her ideas for supporting characters, a valet and Louise’s confidante Henriette, to be made up by Bermans and Nathans Costumiers if they couldn’t be obtained from stock.
Much more exacting and detailed are her fully painted design sketches. Fouquet’s pride and position are communicated by the sumptuous fabrics stipulated by Lehmann: velvet and brocade with gold trimmings.
The arrogance and extreme artificiality of the Sun King come across instantly in his costume for the ball, with his golden mask a callous echo of the iron mask in which he had his brother imprisoned.
The French court is visually splendid in The Man in the Iron Mask, but Lehmann’s costume designs help to ensure we never forget its hidden malevolence.
Produced with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.