Prince of Foxes

This is a fascinating, if slightly flawed film, from an interesting phase in Orson Welles career. The failure of Lady From Shanghai, and the collapse of his marriage with Rita Hayworth , had almost finished him in Hollywood. In order to pay his alimony bills and raise money for Othello, he appeared in a series of historical melodramas and second rate mysteries( And one masterpiece, The Third Man.) One of the best of these melodramas was Prince of Foxes ( In which Welles "stock company" member, Everett Sloane, also appeared)Here is the Welles who once played Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, a dark, brooding,charming, satanic/Byronic villain,and a superb foil for the ostensible star of the show,Tyrone Power.This is further proof of the influence of the campy, melodramatic theater of the nineteen hundreds on the sensibility and vision of Welles. It is also proof that he could work perfectly well with a craftsman-like director from the "studio system", such as Henry King.Interestingly, he was to perform a similar feat a few years later, in yet another Tyrone Power vehicle, The Black Rose, working for yet another disciplined Hollywood talent, Henry Hathaway.