Tyrone Power Collection

Swashbuckling star Tyrone Power once remarked: "I’ve done an awful lot of stuff that’s a monument to the public patience.” And unfortunately, an awful lot of that stuff has found its way into Fox’s new five-film collection. Though one decent movie and one borderline case make it into the set, the remaining three are dull historical pageants enlivened only by fine cinematography and the occasional distraction of Orson Welles. Best of the bunch is Blood and Sand, a remake of a Valentino picture in which Power plays a matador who rises from poverty to greatness only to give in to vanity and cowardice. Romantic and tragic, it’s beautifully shot, reasonably well directed by Rouben Mamoulian and happily free of the loud, surging music that tends to muck up this kind of movie. Somewhat less satisfactory is Son of Fury: The Story of Benjamin Blake, in which our man plays the son of a British aristocrat who’s robbed of his birthright and must escape to the South Seas before returning in glory. It’s fairly action-packed when it stays in 19th century Britain but unfortunately, stops dead when it gets to his desert island and a romance with Gene Tierney. But that’s the least of your worries when faced with Captain from Castile, a painfully distended opus in which Power runs afoul of the Spanish Inquisition and flees to Aztec Mexico. The game then is to distinguish between the gold-loving conquistadors and the nice guys who want to bring God to the heathens. It’s way overlong and lacks a single exciting moment. After that, Prince of Foxes is at least preferable for being short, with Power as a spy for the Borgias who ultimately sides with the Duke of the territory he’s supposed to be undermining. Welles is terrific as the suavely evil Cesare Borgia but he’s not in it nearly enough. The former citizen Kane is also on hand for The Black Rose, as a representative of Genghis Khan, and once again he’s way more fun that the turgid story of Power leaving Norman-conquered Britain only to protect a girl (Cecile Aubry) doomed to be Khan’s concubine. As a film it’s shorter than Captain from Castile but it still feels just as long. For those who can stomach the movies, there are extras galore, including expert commentaries, featurettes, restoration comparisons, galleries, isolated score tracks and a newsreel.