Prince of Foxes (1949)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Henry King

Writers:

Milton Krims (writer)
Samuel Shellabarger (novel)

Release Date:

23 December 1949 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | History

Plot:

An unscrupulous agent for the Borgias suffers a change of heart when asked to betray a noble count and his much younger, very beautiful wife.

Plot Keywords:

Borgia | Assassination | Renaissance | Nobility | Catapult

Awards:

Nominated for 2 Oscars.

Cast

Tyrone Power	...	Andrea Orsini
Orson Welles	...	Cesare Borgia
Wanda Hendrix	...	Camilla Verano
Marina Berti	...	Angela Borgia
Everett Sloane	...	Mario Belli
Katina Paxinou	...	Mona Constanza Zoppo
Felix Aylmer	...	Count Marc Antonio Verano

Runtime:

107 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | West Germany:12 (f) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Chapel of Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Tuscany, Italy

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During the battle sequence the exact same ground level shot of hot oil being poured on soldiers scaling a siege ladder is repeated only seconds later.

Quotes:

Andrea Orsini: [looking at the dead body of Lucrezia Borgia's husband] Would you say the dead man made a reluctant corpse?
Don Esteban: A loose tongue soon loses its mouth, Captain Orsini.
Andrea Orsini: A wise tongue never needs to repeat itself, Don Esteban, nor does a competent assassin.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Dancing in the Dark (1949)

Everything but glorious Technicolor!

I seem to recall reading somewhere that one of Darryl F. Zanuck's reasons for not bestowing three-strip Technicolor on this otherwise all-the-amenities production was that he was peeved at Tyrone Power, still under contract to 20th-Century Fox at the time, for turning down numerous scripts. That's probably an apocryphal bit of trivia since it wasn't very easy for contractees to turn down very many scripts without a dreaded (and costly) suspension, and also one might guess that the amount of frozen lira available for the extensive location shooting of this stunning swashbuckler wasn't as munificent as would have been needed to ship those cumbersome three-strip Technicolor cameras to Italy and to complete the expensive process of photography and the preparation of final release prints. But there's no doubt that color cinematography would have enhanced the final result.

Nevertheless, as other comments on this title attest, the completed film is one that repays repeated viewings. When I first saw it on a TV broadcast I was especially impressed with Henry King's direction, somehow more flexible and attuned to his actors' capabilities than many of the productions which he helmed on U.S. soundstages. I'll certainly add my praise to other IMDbers' encomiums for the male members of the cast, but there should also be a word of thanks for the lovely Wanda Hendrix's portrayal, convincing as a devoted wife of a much older husband, and the brief appearance as the treacherous Angela Borgia by Marina Berti, whose beauty was soon to grace the Technicolored screen as Eunice in M-G-M's "Quo Vadis?" two years later.

And this film also boasts one of my favorite scores by Alfred Newman. From the main title's opening bars, one knows that this is one of his best achievements, with an exciting sweep and, as the film unfolds, a masterful enhancement of the script's many nuances. This one truly deserves a video release. How about it, Fox Studio Classics?