Should this have been filmed in color?

I'm not so sure you're flying against public opinion, certainly not altogether, and you're not alone. I agree with your points 2 (its film noirish quality lost if it had been in Technicolor) and 3 (its excellent cinemaphotography). I'm not sure your concerns in point 1, about audiences gawking at the fabulous settings if they'd been in color, would have been much to worry about -- they'd still watch the story. But overall I agree b&w is best for this film. It just always struck me how many "responsible" people thought color would have worked here. It probably would have, but in a more superficial way, and thereby lost the qualities you cite, which are necessary to the film's story.

You probably know Leon Shamroy did receive an Oscar nomination for Best Cinemaphotography, Black & White, for this in 1949. (The film lost to BATTLEGROUND, of all things.)

I'm not sure I agree in comparing FOXES vs. CASTILE that the former was the more satisfying. Each had its strengths and drawbacks and I rate them on about a par, perhaps actually giving CASTILE an edge as to drama and characterizations. But that has nothing to do with its being shot in color as against b&w. You're right, the MTV generation would never get that (and probably wouldn't like either picture anyway).

Speaking of Oscars, I was always surprised CASTILE didn't receive a nomination for its photography, which was exquisite. 1947's winner, BLACK NARCISSUS, absolutely deserved the award as it's generally considered the most beautiful color film ever shot (according to, among others, the people at the Technicolor Corp.), but I think it deserved recognition. FOXES I think certainly merited the '49 cinemaphotography Oscar more than did BATTLEGROUND!

And I'll close by going even further...for some reason, my favorite of all the films in the upcoming set is, of all things, THE BLACK ROSE. This is certainly the least known of the five and most people would rate it the "least good" (not bad, just not quite up to the others). But there's always been something about this film that's drawn me into it, and I was so glad when I learned it would be part of this set. I think perhaps it's the places and period in which it was filmed (mid-late '49 in postwar England and the more remote Morocco), some sense of the modern time in which it was filmed, with the world just pulling itself together after the war, somehow seeping into the 13th century story, and not to its detriment. I know this sounds a little inarticulate and unclear, and I can't really explain it, but there's an aura about it that gets me lost in the story to a degree the others don't come close to. Perhaps also because it is the "underdog" among all these films I feel it deserves some favorable attention too.

I'm always getting into fights with the colorization crowd over their predilections for wrecking films via that process, and one of their disingenuous arguments is that colorizing movies shows them in the way their makers intended or wanted them to be. That's inaccurate (as to the quality of true color vs. colorizing) and a lie (most filmmakers deliberately chose or had no problem with shooting in b&w), but in POF there's actually some reason to believe that Zanuck's petulance about Power (whether his falling box office or his marrying Linda Christian) led him to cancel any chance of filming POF in color. I have no quarrel with its being in b&w, as I stated at the outset of this thread, but it may be one of those rare cases where color might have been intended and maybe desired, only to see it yanked due to a mogul's capriciousness. Your post makes a lot of valid points.

I'm now watching a colorized version. I'm just wondering what colorizers use as their palette when doing this sort of work. When restoring an old color movie, the restorers can research those colors which were originally used.

Well, I'm glad you generally dislike colorization. I agree its quality varies, from lousy to abysmal, but it really doesn't take much to tell if a film has been colorized. (One sure way is if there's no mention of color in the film's credits -- like "Color by Technicolor" or the like.)

The main problem, aside from the fact that colorization is fake, computer colors cannot replicate true colors, and the process wrecks the "tone" of the film's image, is that in the vast majority of cases no one knows what color the objects and backgrounds in a b&w film actually were. Some idiot technician simply smears on any arbitrary colors he thinks look good. Seldom do they know the actual colors involved, and on those rare occasions when they do they cannot possibly fake it to look natural, or the way it would have looked in real color. Besides which, colorization cannot capture the nuance, subtleties or complexities of actual, real-world color.

So keep Prince of Foxes as is, and just imagine what might have been. No color is better than fake color.

But you have an interesting take on the topic. Thanks for posting.

POF's cinematographer was Leon Shamroy, who had already won three Academy Awards for color cinematography: The Black Swan (1942), Wilson (1944) and Leave Her to Heaven (1945), and would win a fourth for Cleopatra (1963). These in addition to fourteen other nominations, for both color and b&w -- including one for photographing Prince of Foxes. So there was no need for a different DP, just for Fox to have increased the budget to allow for color.

That aside, I agree with everything you said, WhackJob. You make some excellent points.