Product Description

Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 05/01/2007 Run time: 107 minutes Rating: Nr

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16377 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-05-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English, Italian
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

Amazon.com
Although it is spectacularly photographed, there's no question about the main draw of Prince of Foxes: Orson Welles easily pilfers every scene he's in. Tyrone Power is the nominal star, but Welles gets to play the larger-than-life Cesare Borgia, looking to expand his power by gobbling up Italian land in every direction. Power, as his faithful and ambitious lieutenant, is dispatched to soften up a city-state... but it's Power who ends up softening. The production is beautifully mounted by director Henry King, with location shooting that rivals the King-Power collaboration Captain from Castile, although color would have made the Borgia world a more vivid playpen.

Welles was concurrently making his version of Othello, and used jobs like Prince of Foxes to pay for his own movie. There's no denying that things slow badly whenever Welles isn't on screen, although Everett Sloane (a longtime Welles company actor) brings vinegar to his part as a hired assassin. Ty Power, who already looks older than his 35 years, is clearly beginning to wear down as a dashing adventure hero--but both he and Welles would return a year later in The Black Rose, a bouncier epic entirely. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

One of Tyrone Power's best, and filled with the amusing, cynical and deadly schemes of Cesare Borgia (Orson Welles)
If passionate love, convivial betrayals and loyalty one can change as quickly as one's shirt intrigues you, you'll most likely enjoy Prince of Foxes. If nothing else, you'll learn a great party trick that involves two eyeballs and two thumbs. Prince of Foxes, in my view, is one of the best of the Tyrone Power adventure films. It stands out in part because we find ourselves operating in the lusty, double-dealing world of Cesare Borgia. And while Orson Welles, who plays Borgia, can't resist slicing the ham with gusto, it must be admitted that he brings a lot of joie de vivre to villainy.

Andrea Orsini (Tyrone Power) is one of Borgia's clever lieutenants. He's smart, charming, deadly with a blade and almost as opportunistic as his master. As Borgia says when describing the kind of man he needs for a mission to Ferrara to undermine the duke there, "who but a man as quick at deceit as a fox? He must have the grace of a dancer, the wrist of an assassin. He must have little regard for good faith, yet by his astuteness be able to confuse men's minds....He must charm as a snake charms birds, yet he must make no friends, except for those who may be of use to him, and for the same reason although he may make use of love, he must not love." His mission to Ferrara a success, Orsini is sent by Borgia to secure the fortified Citte del Monte, ruled by the aged and honorable Count Verano (Felix Aylmer) and his much younger wife, the Countess Camilla (Wanda Hendrix). Orsini brings with him the unscrupulous and deadly rogue Mario Belli (Everett Sloane). Poor Andrea Orsini. As he witnesses wisdom and humanity, as for probably the first time in his life he begins to feel an honorable love, and as he knows Cesare Borgia will soon arrive with an army to demand the capitulation of Citte del Monte, he discovers that most uncomfortable of feelings...a conscience. Before long a good man will die, love will blossom, a great battle will be fought, a rescue from a dungeon will be planned and executed, the difference between conscienceless nobility and the nobility of the soul will be pointed out to us, and two eyeballs will be put in danger.

The movie, filmed in Italy, is briskly paced and well photographed. The battle scene is a rouser, with fat, stubby cannons blasting away. Great wooden trebuchets hurl stones and flaming balls of pitch into the city. Vats of boiling oil are tipped over onto Borgia's soldiers as they try to scale the city's walls. The screenplay is studded with clever, cynical observations about love, diplomacy and war. Unlike so many adventure movies, there really is no dud acting in Prince of Thieves. Even Wanda Hendrix manages the role of Camilla with enough dignity to win us over. The cast of featured players is strong, with solid performances by Felix Aylmer, Marina Berti as a cousin of Cesare who has her eye on Orsini, Katina Paxinou as Orsini's peasant mother and, especially, that first-rate actor Everett Sloane as Mario Belli. He went to Hollywood from the Mercury Theater with Welles and appeared notably in Welles' Citizen Kane and The Lady from Shanghai. He gets perhaps the best lines in the movie: "I discovered that the devil doesn't always pay best. This whole thing pleases me. Who betrayed who and where did it start? No matter. It shall be said among my fellow practitioners in double-dealing that I was the greatest of them all."

But what of Cesare Borgia? The movie implies that the forces of justice will rise up one day and smight him. In fact, Borgia was the illegitimate son of Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI. When his father became Pope, Borgia's career as a military conqueror blossomed. When the Pope died, Cesare discovered all his old friends quickly found new men to fawn over. After being imprisoned once or twice, he made his way to Spain, where he was killed in a battle against French forces most people have long forgotten.

The DVD features a black-and-white transfer which is in good shape, even in most of the night scenes. There are a few light-weight extras that I didn't sample. For those who like Hollywood movie music, it's possible to play the score without the dialogue.

And for those who enjoy reading as well as watching, the movie is based on the book by Samuel Shellabarger. It holds up reasonably well. Shellabarger, a professor of English at Princeton when he died, wrote four best-selling historical novels. Two were made into movies, this one and The Captain from Castile, which also stars Power.

Prince of Foxes: The Best-Selling Historical Epic

Return of a great classic
I am happy to see the DVD release of Prince of Foxes. This movie is a gem I first encountered years ago on the midday movie channel and I've loved it ever since. Tyrone Power plays an impostor posing as a nobleman in the service of Cesare Borgia. Sent to subvert a castle town that stands in the way of Borgia's ambition to rule central Italy, Power falls in love with the young duchess who rules the place and determines to oppose his old boss and defend the town. The town falls, Power is revealed to be a mere peasant, but that's not all there is to the story...

Prince of Foxes is full of romance, intrigue, treachery, loyalty, honor, and adventure. It's a must for any swashbuckling collection.

Power never boring!
Wanda Hendrix the the light weight starlet here. She was married to someone (can't remember now) semi famous.(Audie Murphy?) She ruins the picture for me and cannot play the love interest to the handsome, dashing Tyrone Power. Welles is always good and played with Tyrone in the Black Rose.

Enjoyable movies of another place and time. Not full of 4 letter words and explicit bedroom scenes. Romantic and entertaining.