MovieChat Forums > Prince of Players (1955) Discussion > An actor I..D. + running time questions

An actor I..D. + running time questions

posted 15 years ago by tbrittreid
2 replies | jump to latest

I have this, a Twentieth Century Fox picture, recorded off of Fox Movie Channel, which has no commercials and is obviously directly related to the studio. From it, I have two points about IMDb's listings:

1. I'd swear the actor playing the actor who plays Hamlet's Polonius is Sam Jaffe, but Percival Vivian gets the credit here.

2. Despite a listing here of a 102-minute running time and no mention of the studio itself being responsible for any significantly recut version, FMC's print comes in at almost exactly 90 minutes, although a full two-hour slot was cleared and the last thirty minutes filled with irrelevant...well, fillers. This demands either a change in the running time listing or the addition of an "Alternate Versions" note. Admittedly, Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide gives the same length as here, but both and other sources agree that the Glenn Ford/Chad Everett MGM Western The Last Challenge runs 105 minutes and make no acknowledgement of an alternate release, yet even Turner Classic Movies' letter-boxed print comes in at just 90. If the owners of the MGM library's wide-screen (and therefore not cut for commercial television) print is no longer than that (along with what I've seen of this movie on broadcast stations and TNT cable in years gone by), then I don't see how there can be a longer version. Everybody appears to be wrong about that film, so why not about this one as well? However, FMC's PoP was not letter-boxed, which may well be quite significant.

Can anybody clear the air on either of these points?

The GREEN HORNET Strikes Again!

[–] admrnelson 14 years ago

I recorded it this morning,and the print shown was exactly 102 minutes. The actor playing Pelonius is Percival Vivian. The print is pretty good, but is pan & scan. There are many scenes that cry out to be seen in letter box. Fox has seen terrible sales for many of the classics and tv shows, most notably all of the Irwin Allen shows especialy the overpriced
'Land of the Giants' box set. As a result, the final release of the second half of 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea's' final season is in limbo. If they ever start releasing the classic line, it will probably be in blue ray or some other new format. The cost of restoring these films is costly.

[–] tbrittreid 14 years ago

admrnelson: I recorded it this morning, and the print shown was exactly 102 minutes. The actor playing Pelonius is Percival Vivian. The print is pretty good, but is pan & scan. There are many scenes that cry out to be seen in letter box.

When I said that it was not letterboxed, I meant that I knew it was filmed in a widescreen process (there's a big credit at the first of the movie) and shown panned & scanned on the Fox Movie Channel.

What did you record it off of? Mine is, as I said, off of FMC, and it is definitely within two minutes of 90 minutes. They cleared a two-hour time slot and followed the film with just about a half-hour of irrelevant filler, all in my DVR as part of the recording. Sorry, but that Fox Movie Channel on at least one occasion (specifically, 6AM ET/5 CT, Saturday, 12 December 2006) aired a version of PoP that was 90 minutes long is not open to debate.

As for Vivian, one of his other credits on his IMDb page was a similar role as an actor in A Double Life, starring Ronald Colman as a Shakespearean star. I checked our DVD of that film, and that wasn't Jaffe yet could be the same guy here. So I do back down from that one.

The GREEN HORNET Strikes Again!