Wow! Such a good movie.

The Worst Film Ever

A Masterpiece!

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Curiously shot in B/W this superbly produced (on location in Italy) epic is quite special in many ways. Expensive sets, costumes, and handpicked cast are equally supported by an intelligent screenplay from Milton Krims - based on Samuel Shellabarger's expansive novel. Richly nuanced performances (what a pity Orson Welles went off on a tangent instead of committing to acting!). These performers make the crisp dialog sparkle and the action scenes are recreated with all their terrifying realism. Direction is first class with Alfred Newman underscoring in his expected professional style. Almost never seen today, this films DVD release is to be commended for several interesting features. One for the Film Score lovers is the separate track given for the music score. If only other discs would offer this marvellous feature. I came late to this film so, was pleasantly surprised to find it far more enthralling than at first anticipated. Quality for history and cinema buffs of all ages. This is yet more evidence to support colourising of fine motion picture art - many films were just not able to be shot in colour at the time of production - so the academy and other misguided 'film' makers are cheating us out of enjoying these important gems in the colour they deserve. The argument they put up against colorizing is simply out of date in this computer age! Move with the artistic abilities of the times. I'm sure the populace would be far happier (do a consensus) if you kept your outmoded ideas to yourselves. I'm not saying colorize the noir classics like 'Maltese Falcon' etc but, musicals and costume epics need color and with the technology available and people wanting them in color - why not?

Top-notch performances from TYRONE POWER, ORSON WELLES and EVERETT SLOANE are the main reasons for watching PRINCE OF FOXES, aside from some very striking B&W photography that makes the most of all the Italian Renaissance settings.Then too, Alfred Newman has composed a masterful score, although I couldn't help notice that the love theme for Power and Hendrix is actually taken from a brief theme from THE SNAKE PIT where de Havilland and Leo Genn are exchanging parting words.The fictionalized story of Cesare Borgia (ORSON WELLES) benefits from Welles' strong depiction of the elegant and evil man. He's impressive in a film that demands impressive work from its three main actors. TYRONE POWER is magnificent as Orsini, every bit the kind of hero Samuel Shellabarger wrote about for his historical romances. And EVERETT SLOANE, as Belli, a man who switches his allegiances so constantly that you never know which side he's on, is a scene-stealer in a role worthy of his talent.Only drawback is that Fox filmed it on actual location sites in Italy, giving added realism to all the palace interiors which cry out for Technicolor rather than B&W. Since the story dwells on the dark side, this is not as much of a disadvantage as it might have been. Rumors are that Power very much wanted Technicolor for the film, but Fox was suffering losses in the European market and settled for B&W.Summing up: Grand entertainment in the lavish, swashbuckling manner prescribed by these sort of historical romances.

Let me first point out that there is plenty of action in this movie to keep a viewer interested, while at the same time, giving thought provoking drama. You could expect no less from Welles, of course. This is probably Power's best acting role. It centralizes on some historical characters, notably the Borgias, who represented the "Prince" of Machiavelli's ideal. Power plays a noble born man (one of the Orsini), who adopts the principle and tries to fit in. The movie is timeless, and could be made today. Orsini (Tyrone Power) is the opposite of the Machiavellian prince, however. Instead of being generous on the outside, he presents a harsh exterior, but has a better man inside. This is revealed when he thwarts an assassin, and instead of killing the assassin, makes him a servant. The assassin, too, has the same dilemma, and we don't know until later on whether he is truly evil, or whether he also has a dangerous decent human soul. Welles plays the cruel Borgia. Historically, the Orsini were one of the two largest families in hereditary lines of cardinals, and they were usually pitted against the Colonna family in papal disputes. The two families were no doubt the basis for Shakespeare in the feud between the Capulets and Montagues. The Orsini were usually more opposed to the French, while the Colonna were more opposed to the German influence. None of that comes into play in this movie, so don't look for it. The movie has a different purpose. The theme is too controversial to be made today. One look at the movies of the last forty years shows that Machiavelli is too revered to have his ideals put in jeopardy. Audiences would scream in horror to see this polar opposite of a spaghetti movie.

From the VHS recording I made of Prince of Foxes on Cinemax 8 years ago (as I recall, part of their Summer series of movies not yet out on video), this movie looks as if it was shot in color. Those castle interior scenes are too dark and DP Leon Shamroy too accomplished a technician to film the movie in such subdued lighting. Somewhere in the Fox archives, there may be records to show if Prince of Foxes was originally intended to be a Technicolor release. The most likely reason 20th Century Fox released the movie in black and white is cost, after Zanuck decided that the potential box office of the movie did not justify the greater expense of making the release prints in Technicolor. Or, the reason could be that some of the filmed material turned out for technical shortcomings not to be able to be processed correctly for Technicolor by the film lab. The cost for retakes would have been prohibitive, since the movie was filmed on location in Italy. So, my opinion is that the studio took the cheap way out, processing a black and white negative from the Technicolor film negative, figuring the audience would not notice how the timing was way off.If there is still a surviving Technicolor negative of this movie in the Fox film archives stored in some cave somewhere, shot in the three strip Technicolor process, there is now computer technology available to correct any defects in the original negative.On another note, the director Henry King liked low angle shots as much, if not more, than director Michael Bay. This movie is loaded with low angle shots, sometimes to take advantage of the castle backgrounds, sometimes to show a person's bad situation, as when the bound Orsini looks up at Borgia at the dinner table. In 1949, Henry King had been a director for 30 years, and he picked up some good tricks along the way. Too bad 20th Century Fox didn't spring for a Technicolor release of Prince of Foxes.