PRINCE VALIANT [1954 / 2010] [Blu-ray] [UK Release]
You See It Without Glasses in CinemaScope! Filmed in Glorious Technicolor!
The Saturday matinee adventure classic is back! Young Prince Valiant travels to Camelot to become a squire for Sir Gawain, one of King Arthur's legendary knights, unaware that the traitor that sold his father King Aguar to the pagan rival King Sligon is already seated at the Round Table!
With thrilling action, romance, courtly intrigue, Franz Waxman's rousing score, and a magnificent cast of Hollywood greats including James Mason, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner, Debra Paget, Sterling Hayden, Victor McLaglen, Donald Crisp and Tom Conway. ‘PRINCE VALIANT’ is released for home viewing for the first time in the UK.
FILM FACT: The film is based on the syndicated newspaper comic strip of the same name by Hal Foster. 20th Century Fox obtained the rights to the comic strip after M-G-M allowed their option to lapse. The film was the idea of producer Robert Jacks, who was the son in law of 20th Century Fox’s head Darryl F. Zanuck and bought the rights to eight years of stories for the comic strip, but adapted a 1937 story. In December 1952 Henry Hathaway was assigned as director. Medieval swashbucklers had been an experiencing a recent surge of popularity since the success of M-G-M's ‘Ivanhoe’ [1952]. In January 1953 20th Century Fox announced the film would be shot in CinemaScope. Robert Wagner had his hair cut to match that in the comic strip and the actor later joked "Dean Martin passed me on the lot and thought I was Jane Wyman." In March 1954 Darryl F. Zanuck announced that 20th Century Fox would make a sequel, ‘Valiant and Aleta’ dealing with Valiant's married life with Aleta. This film was never made.
Cast: James Mason, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner, Debra Paget, Sterling Hayden, Victor McLaglen, Donald Crisp, Brian Aherne, Barry Jones, Mary Philips, Howard Wendell, Tom Conway, Robert Adler (uncredited), Lloyd Ahern II (uncredited), Chris Alcaide (uncredited), Hal Baylor (uncredited), Neville Brand (uncredited), George Bruggeman (uncredited), Primo Carnera (uncredited), Larry Chance (uncredited), Joe Collins (uncredited), Robert Cunningham (uncredited), John David (uncredited), John Dierkes (uncredited), Jack Finley (uncredited), Fortune Gordien (uncredited), Tom Hennesy (uncredited), Jarma Lewis (uncredited), Tony Linehan (uncredited), Don Megowan (uncredited), Hank Metheney (uncredited), Lou Nova (uncredited), Ray Page (uncredited), Bill Radovich (uncredited), Gene Roth (uncredited), Basil Ruysdael (uncredited), Bob Simpson (uncredited), Fred Snyder (uncredited), Ray Spiker (uncredited), Richard Webb (uncredited), Ben Wright (uncredited), Carleton Young (uncredited) and Michael Rennie (Narrators voice) (uncredited)
Director: Henry Hathaway
Producer: Robert L. Jacks
Screenplay: Douglas Nichols (screenplay) and Hal Foster (based on King Features Syndicate's "Prince Valiant" by Harold Foster)
Composer: Franz Waxman
Cinematography: Lucien Ballard (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio: 2.55:1 (CinemaScope)
Audio: English: 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio
Subtitles: English SDH
Running Time: 100 minutes
Region: Region B/2
Number of discs: 1
Studio: 20th Century Fox / EUREKA! Entertainment Ltd
Andrew's Blu-ray Review: ‘PRINCE VALIANT’ is a 1954 adventure film in Technicolor and Cinemascope, based on the comic strip of the same name by Hal Foster. A young man seeks to join the Knights of the Round Table in order to restore his father to his own kingship, and uncovers a plot against King Arthur.
In this adventure and romantic film ‘PRINCE VALIANT’ is also the long running popular comic strip of the same name, comes to life in this colourful, lively production mounted by 20th Century Fox. In it, a very young Robert Wagner plays the title character, son of the King of Scandia during the time of King Arthur [Brian Aherne]. With his family living in exile after his father's throne is forcefully taken, Prince Valiant (also known as “Val”) travels to Camelot to seek help from King Arthur. When he gets wind of plans by the evil Black Knight to overthrow Arthur's kingdom, Val prepares for a to-the-death battle under the tutelage of the famous Knights of the Round Table. Co-starring James Mason as the duplicitous Sir Brack, Sterling Hayden as the virtuous Sir Gawain, and Janet Leigh as Val's beautiful love interest Aleta, ‘Prince Valiant’ is a colourful trip back to the Middle Ages as only Hollywood can do it.
Based on Hal Foster's comic strip “Prince Valiant” and is about a young Viking prince who seeks to become one of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, after traveling to Camelot from his native Scandia when his father is removed from the throne by a pagan who has no business taking his place. Meanwhile, the illegitimate Viking king is plotting with a mysterious Black Knight to overthrow King Arthur.
Screenwriter Dudley Nichols for ‘Stagecoach’ [1939] and ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ [1943] wrote the screenplay based on the King in the features syndicate's “Prince Valiant” comic strip originally created by Harold Foster. First appearing in newspapers in 1937, Harold Foster wrote and illustrated the strip until 1971. Since then Prince Valiant has remained in circulation to this day, having been continued under the hand-picked talents of artists John Cullen Murphy and Gary Gianni.
Henry Hathaway was never really much of a director, let's be honest, he focused mainly on action films that were average at best, sans a few exceptions like the flame-throwing Richard Burton vehicle ‘Raid on Rommel,’ which I still enjoy to this day as a fun little desert rats movie, but still, he wasn't overly impressive in his career, and with efforts like ‘Prince Valiant’ you can see why. Though he is not entirely at fault as he had to work with a terrible script somehow penned by an Oscar winner, and direct a couple of actors who give the worst performances of their lives, namely Sterling Hayden.
Although it has the eye candy of Janet Leigh and Debra Paget, the film is a bit of bore. It's slow and nothing particularly exciting happens until after the first hour clocks in. It's book-ended by a pretty impressive battle at a castle and a duel between Prince Valiant and the Black Knight, who is revealed to be someone all too close to Arthur, but other than that it's a flat film. There isn't enough action for it to simply be a fun film and it's all too serious and at least it tries to be, following a mediocre script.
‘PRINCE VALIANT’ is truly an old fashioned adventure and romantic film, one full of predictable twists and hilarious clichés. It is well paced, but at times also a bit too focused on details that are of little importance, if any at all. Franz Waxman's symphonic score, however, is terrific. The acting is pleasing. Robert Wagner, Janet Leigh, James Mason and especially Sterling Hayden do an admirable job of keeping the film as fresh as possible. Hayden's witty one-liners, in particular, are terrific. There are also a couple of surprisingly edgy jokes that work quite well and of course makes for a jolly good enjoyable romp through the Knights of the Round Table and made you want to be there enjoying everything you view.
According to Robert Wagner's co-star Janet Leigh, her film star husband at the time, Tony Curtis, had wanted to play Prince Valiant and was disappointed when he lost the role. Janet Leigh, however, was happy to be working with Robert Wagner and described him in her 1984 autobiography “There Really Was a Hollywood” as “probably one of the nicest human beings in this, or any, city. Well-mannered, straightforward, humorous, eager, he good-naturedly submitted to the indignity of being with the ladies in the hair department every morning to don his Prince Valiant pageboy wig.”
Janet Leigh remembered director Henry Hathaway as “an excellent director, a charming host, and a good friend,” but he was also someone who “enjoyed being mischievous, goading someone, baiting, to get a reaction.” Henry Hathaway often grumbled about having to wait on hair and makeup people to work their magic on Janet Leigh and co-star Debra Paget, according to Leigh, and he could be particularly hard on Robert Wagner. “My deduction,” said Janet Leigh, “as that Henry Hathawat ragged R.J. [Robert Wagner's nickname to friends] a bit much. But on reflection, I decided he was really helping him, protecting him, tugging on every string, pulling out all stops, making him better than he thought he was. Because R.J. was young, relatively inexperienced, and his was the demanding, pivotal role.”
‘PRINCE VALIANT’ was given a grand premiere at the Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood when it opened in the Spring of 1954. It went on to be a respectable hit with the support of mostly favourable reviews. The New York Times called it a “lively adventure;” Variety praised the “imaginative” action and the “dazzling” settings, and Time magazine said, “Producer Robert L. Jacks and Director Henry Hathaway have not only matched the museum-copied look of the well-known Sunday Viking and his cohorts; they have caught the panel's inner mood of stilted boyhood reverie as well.”
Blu-ray Image Quality – ‘PRINCE VALIANT’ is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.55:1, and given an awesome 1080p encoded image, Henry Hathaway's ‘PRINCE VALIANT’ arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of the British distributors EUREKA! Entertainment Ltd. Fine object detail and contrast vary quite a bit. Clarity is also fairly consistent, especially during the indoor scenes. There are a variety of colour pulsations that I noticed throughout the entire film as well. Some of the outdoor scenes tend to look pale, with blacks, greens, blues, reds, and browns being fairly unconvincing. There are also a couple of transition issues. Finally, I detected a few minor flecks and scratches popping up here and there. The good news is that there are no traces of heavy noise filtering. Healthy film grain is easily noticeable during a number of scenes. Many of the outdoor close-ups, for example, look quite good. All in all, there are some issues with the presentation, but I must say that this is definitely the best ‘PRINCE VALIANT’ has ever looked. For the record, EUREKA! Entertainment Ltd has provided an optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature and when turned on, they appear outside of the image frame. Please Note: Playback Region B/2: This will not play on most Blu-ray players sold in North America, Central America, South America, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Learn more about Blu-ray region specifications.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – There is only one audio track on this Blu-ray disc and that is 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio. This is a competent audio track. The sound is clean and mostly stable. The dynamic amplitude is also pleasing. The dialog is crisp and clean. There are no serious balance issues with Franz Waxman's symphonic score either with the strings and brass are both convincing. But aside from some extremely mild background noise, I did not detect any disturbing pops, cracks, or dropouts to report in this Blu-ray review. So well done EUREKA! Entertainment Ltd for making this film even better than when the film was originally released in the cinema.
Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Theatrical Trailer: [1954] [1080i] [2.55:1] [2:56] This is the Original Theatrical Trailer for the film ‘PRINCE VALIANT.’
Finally, I hope we see more of these budget releases from EUREKA! Entertainment Ltd in the future, as I believe that it is the only way these forgotten gems such as Henry Hathaway's ‘PRINCE VALIANT’ could see the light of day. I never saw this film when it came out or when it was released on the inferior DVD format, but I am so glad I now have it in this ultimate Blu-ray format, as it was truly an enjoyable film and now it is pride of place in my Blu-ray Collection. The other reason I purchased this Blu-ray disc, is because it was also very attractively priced. Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
