Prince of Foxes **** (1949, Tyrone Power, Orson Welles, Wanda Hendrix, Everett Sloane, Felix Aylmer, Katina Paxinou) – Classic Movie Review 2652

Both looking good, Tyrone Power and Orson Welles lock swords in director Henry King’s beautifully made 1949 swashbuckler, set in Renaissance Italy in 1500.

Power stars as the dashing hero Andrea Orsini, supposedly an artistic minor nobleman, who serves as a soldier for the evil prince Cesare Borgia (Welles), who picks him to arrange the marriage of his widowed sister Lucrezia (she was poisoned) to the heir apparent of Ferrara.

Orsini, his sister’s lover, earns the enmity of ambitious captain and rival Don Esteban (Leslie Bradley), but travels to Venice and meets the lovely Camilla di la Baglione (Wanda Hendrix), young wife of the elderly Count Marc Antonio Verano (Felix Aylmer) of Cittá del Monte, Borgia’s next intended conquest. Orsini is nearly as unscrupulous as Borgia, but he has a weak spot of sentiment that sets him against his Machiavellian master.

The story based on Samuel Shellabarger’s novel has plenty of intrigue and entertainment value, and, if Milton Krims’s screenplay fairly ordinary, it is played with more verve and conviction than it’s worth by the attractive cast.

It’s a great pity that the film is not shot in colour, but still even so Leon Shamroy’s striking and imaginative Oscar-nominated cinematography is a very considerable asset to the enjoyment. And it’s a huge asset that most of the scenes were shot on the exact locations in Italy and San Marino, with the studio work done at Cinecittà Studios near Rome. Cittá del Monte, however, is a fictional place.

Naturally, Welles has a lip-smacking field day, but Power is also on excellent swashbuckling form and Everett Sloane steals all his scenes as the assassin Mario Belli.

King directs on attractively on the superb-looking locations in Florence, Venice, Rome and the surrounding regions, and 20th Century Fox provides the costly-looking, convincing production that, at least, gives the appearance of historical accuracy. [I know, I know, it’s only a movie, Orson!]

This is one from the days when Welles had to be an actor for hire, as he couldn’t get the money together for backing to direct his own projects, but his star acting career is mighty entertaining.

Also in the cast are Katina Paxinou, Marina Berti, Alan Asherman, James Carney, Eugene Deckers, Kenneth Lang, Clinton Sundeen, Albert Latasha and Eva Brauer.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2652

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