Customer Reviews

Prince Valiant

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Director, Henry Hathaway's film version of cartoonist, Hal Foster's Scandinavian hero, "Prince Valiant" is one of those over-blown, wacky-tacky epics that is impossible to take seriously, but so much fun to watch. Robert Wagner is the rather effeminate looking title character who takes Camelot by storm. Determined to regain his own throne, Valiant uncovers the treachery of the Black Knight (James Mason, in a toss away role) and challenges him. Of course, there's also time for love with bombshell, Princess Aleta (Janet Leigh - who quite often found herself squeezed into a corset during her 1950s film tenure.) The film veers between comic book pulp and self-conscious seriousness, but Hathaway's direction ensures that neither become the vice to sink his epic. Brian Aherne (as a credible King Arthur)and Sterling Hayden (a not so credible, Sir Gawain) costar.

THE TRANSFER: Pretty good. Colors are generally bold, vibrant and well balanced. Flesh tones seem a bit pasty but that's in keeping with early Cinemascope/Eastman color dye transfers. Shadow, contrast and black levels are generally solid. Rear projection photography is more obvious than it should be. Pixelization and edge enhancement are present but do not terribly distract. The audio is 5.1, delivering a nice spread in the music tracks. Dialogue is not natural sounding, but again, this was usually to be expected for the vintage of the film.

EXTRAS: Sorry. Nothing but the film.

BOTTOM LINE: This prince is worth a second glance, but its not quite as glamorous as, say "Scaramouche" so much as it belongs as the bottom half of a double bill at your old-time drive in.

"Prince Valiant" is a fun, colorful adventure yarn from 1950's Hollywood. It isn't very faithful to the tone or style of Hal Foster's groundbreaking and beautiful comic strip but is far above the average swords'n'armor pic of the era.

Lacking the style of Curtiz's swashbucklers, the solid scripting of Thorpe's "Ivanhoe" or the visual panache of his stunning tribute to the Brandywine illustrators, "Knights of the Roundtable", "Prince Valiant" packs in lots of well executed, wide-screen action, terrific set pieces, wonderful costumes and attractive landscapes.

Done with a straight American accent (apart from James Mason's stage-villain turn as the traitorous Sir Brock) it often reminds one of George Lucas's "Star Wars".

I've shown this to alot of kids & they all love it. Presented in its original 2.35.1 aspect ratio from a really clean print, it looks remarkably good considering it's a B-picture from half a century ago.

Oh, it also stars the wonderful Donald Crisp ("National Velvet", "How Green Was My Valley"). Overall, a steal for the sell-through price. Enjoy!

As soon as I began this DVD, I found myself setting in the massive RKO Keith's theater in Downtown Dayton, Ohio. The reason I purchased the disk was for that reason. I am 100% satisfied for in that department.

The film score by Franz Waxman is perfection. It is dramatic and fun. As an adult, I wish that the transfer had been in Dolby 5.1.

The performances are appropriate for this film except for Mr. Mason who does no wrong.

I would like to add that the sword fight at the end of the film is of equal to the excitement found in the final duel in Scaramouche.

The Sunday comic strip character gets the CinemaScope treatment and is an entertaining film with plenty of marquee names to attract more than passing interest. The movie holds up quite well 50 years after its release and tells the story of a Viking prince who seeks to overthrow an imposter who has seized the throne of Scandia from his father and return it to King Aguar. Robert Wagner is perfect as the determined and resourceful "Val", as the smitten Aleta [Janet Leigh] calls him, Sterling Hayden is fine as Sir Gawain, the stern but dedicated mentor to the "Viking knave", and the excellent James Mason's suave, polished and calculating Sir Brack has dark, sinister shadings. The film has plenty of action and derring-do, romance, jousting matches at a tournament, palace intrigue, a large-scale battle at the castle in Scandia and an excellent fight with broadswords between Valiant and the Black Knight at the end of the movie. Excellent color photography, realistic sets, beautiful scenery and Franz Waxman's brooding score round out a first-rate film production.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released this DVD on May 11, 2004. For anyone who's a fan of the Cinemascope era of the studio, this DVD is a must have. The movie itself is a silly contrivence of the time, based on a popular comic strip, as the illustrations during the main titles show, but it's all well-mounted with excellent photography and a Franz Waxman score that's a prime example of how a composer can really elevate the atmosphere and pace of a movie. The depiction of the era of the story is cardboard, with everyone and nearly everything looking too pretty and well-manicured -- no grubby surfs are anywhere to be seen, and even the comicbook Vikings are too clean -- but it's fun at its own level, even if today the movie's pace is a bit slow. My only complaint is that top-billed star James Mason isn't in more of it. The actor and his character are far more interesting to watch than the story's protagonist and the stiff, young Robert Wagner sporting a silly wig!

Fox has done a decent job of restoration on this 1954 Technicolor film. While the look is dated and the film stock is more grainy than we're used to today, the majority of it looks remarkably good. I suspect much of it was newly struck from the black and white color separation masters, but the frequent lap desolves have the second generation look of excessive grain and poorer color fidelity. There's one bad anomaly in the transfer at 24min.15sec., a 15 second shot that looks to be third generation. It's soft, grainy and blocked-up. Except for a couple rear projection shots elsewhere in the movie, nothing else in the transfer looks this bad. Otherwise this is a fine looking 16X9 anamorphic DVD of a vintage Cinemascope film.

Originally this movie was presented in some theatres in 1954 in 4-track magnetic stereo. Here, what survives of the stereo tracks is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (not 5.1 as stated in another review here). I'd have preferred if Fox had gone to the efforts of doing a proper 4.0 transfer, but the stereo still sounds good, with the directional dialogue of the era intact, though it can be a bit distracting when left and right speakers are too far from the screen (in theatres the speakers would of course be behind the screen). I found I had to raise the dB level of my rear surrounds to +10 in order to bring out the ambient sound of the film, mostly reserved to the music, but at 1:27min.21sec., when pig fat is used to light fires during the siege of the castle, the mono surround did come alive with fire noise and that was fun.

I'm only giving this DVD three stars because Fox didn't have enough faith (and they may be right) in this library title's marketability to include a commentary track by star Wagner, or a least some feature on the film's production history, and because the sound wasn't remixed for 4.0, but if you're a fan of such films I highly recommend this DVD.

Director, Henry Hathaway's film version of cartoonist, Hal Foster's Scandinavian hero, "Prince Valiant" is one of those over-blown, wacky-tacky epics that is impossible to take seriously, but so much fun to watch. Robert Wagner is the rather effeminate looking title character who takes Camelot by storm. Determined to regain his own throne, Valiant uncovers the treachery of the Black Knight (James Mason, in a toss away role) and challenges him. Of course, there's also time for love with bombshell, Princess Aleta (Janet Leigh - who quite often found herself squeezed into a corset during her 1950s film tenure.) The film veers between comic book pulp and self-conscious seriousness, but Hathaway's direction ensures that neither become the vice to sink his epic. Brian Aherne (as a credible King Arthur)and Sterling Hayden (a not so credible, Sir Gawain) costar.
THE TRANSFER: Pretty good. Colors are generally bold, vibrant and well balanced. Flesh tones seem a bit pasty but that's in keeping with early Cinemascope/Eastman color dye transfers. Shadow, contrast and black levels are generally solid. Rear projection photography is more obvious than it should be. Pixelization and edge enhancement are present but do not terribly distract. The audio is 5.1, delivering a nice spread in the music tracks. Dialogue is not natural sounding, but again, this was usually to be expected for the vintage of the film.
EXTRAS: Sorry. Nothing but the film.
BOTTOM LINE: This prince is worth a second glance, but its not quite as glamorous as, say "Scaramouche" so much as it belongs as the bottom half of a double bill at your old-time drive in.

This is a great movie for kids. We're strict about what we let our kids watch and this is one of the few movies that we did not have to worry about. There is sword fighting and a castle burning (boiling oil and all) but the overall story is excellent and very entertaining. Prince Valiant is a true good guy and true love and good prevail. One of the best movies we have - it has all the right elements: knights, a good plot, a love story that is virtuous, and enormous fun. Great to go along with that Playmobil castle you buy for your kids.

Robert Wagner stars as a young Scandian prince in exile whose quest to win back his father's throne leads him to King Arthur's court and the arms of beautiful Princess Aleta in this extremely well-made and enchanting 1954 adaptation of the famous comic strip character. A delightful mix of adventure, comedy, romance, and royal intrigue, Prince Valiant is brought to life by a marvelous cast (Wagner as the titular young knight; Janet Leigh as his lady Aleta; James Mason as the traitorous Black Knight; and Sterling Hayden as Val's mentor, Sir Gawain) from a heady script by Dudley Nichols and the exhuberant direction of Henry Hathaway. Non-stop fun right up to the amazing trial by combat at the end (one of the best sword fights ever filmed), Prince Valiant is a first class family film that everyone can enjoy.

This movie has the best sword fight ever staged.I saw it years ago on T.V. and I never forgot it.The price of the video is worth it just for the sword fight.

This movie, released in '54, must have frustrated many diehard fans of Foster's original classic strip. While it carries over much of its source material's spirit and enthusiasm, the plot is WAY off and some of the characters emerge as entirely different beings (e.g. Princess Aleta, Gawain, even Val himself.)

Still, it works surprisingly well. In fact, this film is actually much more enjoyable than the far more faithful '90s remake. This fact is attributable, I believe, to the script for the '54 version, which transformed Foster's lusty picaresque strip into a glorious send-up of Victorian boy's books and blood-and-thunder dime novels. In fact, fans of the now-revived juvenile fiction of G.A. Henty should view this as almost a tribute to that great author, complete with relentless Victorianisms and a theme of paganism versus emerging "muscular Christianity."

As a sidenote of interest, this film also seems to have influenced Foster's writing as well. His strips from the late fifties through the the sixties actually began to take on much of the world-view of this classic film.

By the way, your kids-- even if they are jaded techno-junkies-- WILL love this. They may just have trouble admitting it.