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Posted: |
Feb 6, 2018 - 7:40 AM
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By: |
Joe Caps
(Member)
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when Fox was releasing boxed sd dvds of the tyrone Power films, they all were great, but two films sounded awful, the two with my favorite Alfred Newman scores of the bunch - Captain from Castille and Prince of Foxes. Fox is using bad optical dupes made from the Nitrates. I got the twilight time Captain recently. To my surpise, Fox had finally redone the sound. Marvelous. So I thought I would take the plunge and get the blu from Kino of Prince of Foxes, hoping lightning would strike twice. No such luck. It is slightly better than the SD. I think its the same poor track without additional processing. the worst - commentary track, by some guy who does not seem to know how filmis made. There is an incredible scene where power is seeing Venice for the first time. The schmo thinks it is rear projection. Vox vocal director Ken Darby told me how the director arranged to have the harbor clear of motoe boats on a Sunday morning. boats from the yearly regatta were takenout to recreate a dy in Venise in old times. Worse, when he finally mentions composer Alfred Newman, he says it is hard to tell how good he is because Prince is so sparsely scores. Wrong, it has almost 79 min out of a film that is less than two hours long. Hardly sparse.
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According to DVD Beaver: The new blu-ray has commentary by a film historian Troy Howarth, and the older DVD release had commentary by Rudy Behlmer, Jon Burlingame, and Nick Redman.
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In the BEN-HUR souvenir program Berti’s portrait is captioned, “Flavia the Wanton, whose beauty was a trap set for Ben-Hur.” But, since practically all her role was cut, she ends up seeming more like some kind of Roman debutante. Reportedly, she figured in some kind of plot by Messala to attack Ben-Hur. But, after the final edit, Messala’s character ended up with no contact with females at all, making him seem gay, partnered to his constant male companion Drusus. Gay by default, as t’were.
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d/p Sorry.
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In the BEN-HUR souvenir program Berti’s portrait is captioned, “Flavia the Wanton, whose beauty was a trap set for Ben-Hur.” But, since practically all her role was cut, she ends up seeming more like some kind of Roman debutante. Reportedly, she figured in some kind of plot by Messala to attack Ben-Hur. But, after the final edit, Messala’s character ended up with no contact with females at all, making him seem gay, partnered to his constant male companion Drusus. Gay by default, as t’were. Not really. Wallace's book has a villainess vamp called Iras, an Egyptian seductress, and a mistress of Messala. She's in the Niblo. Wyler cast Anglo-Indian actress Kamala Devi ('Geronimo' etc.) in this role (Mrs. Chuck Connors). She did screen tests but her part was cut before shooting. The guff in the publicity book is nonsense. Flavia was just a deb whose walk-on presence indicated how old Judah had CHOICES and made a sacrifice. It was to have been Kamala who did the seduction stuff, not Marina. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0222453/ Marina was just one of many notable players who had walk-on parts in that film ... Ferdi Mayne, Ralph Truman, Andre Morell, Jose Greci, Robert Brown, John le Mesurier, Duncan Lamont, Tutte Lemkow, Lawrence Payne, Richard Hale, etc. etc.. No expense spared, even with extras. It was a deliberate status decision on that film to include as many international actors of stature in bit parts as possible. Many were well known in their own countries, to generate interest abroad. 'Foreign' location was a priority selling point in the publicity in the US too back then.
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I was well aware of Iras the vamp, from both the novel and the silent. (BTW, she’s also the daughter of Balthazar, which adds an extra dimension to that character.) I’d love to read the original screenplay. I found one online, but that seems to be more like a depiction of what is in the released version. I managed to snag a copy online of the script from THE EGYPTIAN, in which scenes start earlier and end later than in the finished film, adding a fascinating edge to a number of characters.
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