The Prince and the Pauper (Live-Action)

[merlinjones]

The gorgeous "Dr. Syn" DVD has a bonus feature that uses a clip from Walt Disney's live-action version of "The Prince and the Pauper" (by way of connecting child star Sean Scully) - which, like "Dr. Syn", was a three-part "Wonderful World of Color" with a theatrical version released in Europe.

This wonderful 1962 production also stars Guy Williams (Zorro) and was always a TV favorite - - yet it has been ignored for decades and the existing prints are almost unwatchable - - even the version that was released on VHS was clearly cobbled together from existing reels.

The clip of P&P shown on the Syn DVD is a muddy disgrace. This show is very extravagant and attractive - - a classic Mark Twain story - - and deserves a full negative restoration like Syn got and both presentations revived for new audiences.

Please, Disney wizards, fix Walt Disney's "The Prince and the Pauper" (no, not the Mickey Mouse version).

[Mouseketodd]

Hear! Hear!

I second that request!

[Darby]

I third, fourth, fifth, and sixth that!

Maybe, just maybe, the success of the Dr. Syn release will prompt some rethinking at HQ Disney about the release of older live-action material.

Darby

[Flanger-Hanger]

We can hope so Darby.

Even before I saw any clips I thought Prince and the Pauper would make a nice companion to Dr Syn and now I really want to see it, but those clips were AWFUL. I hope Disney restores it ASAP. Maybe they could release it with Zorro and have a Guy Williams/Disney Treasures wave. If it's only 3 episodes, what else could they include with it? I'm not entirely familiar with what other 3-part adventure Disney TV shows there are.

[Mr arrow]

I fully agree Merlin!
What would be neat is a Treasures disney set showcasing these gems!
Prince and Pauper is one...A lot of people have forgotten Disney's 'The Legend of Young Dick Turpin' was another. A disney UK production. It starred a young Leonard Whiting who went on to be the star of Franco Zeferelli's much acclaimed Romeo and Juliet. Occasionally you might find it on ebay as it was released by Buena home video many years ago.

[merlinjones]

>>Even before I saw any clips I thought Prince and the Pauper would make a nice companion to Dr Syn and now I really want to see it, but those clips were AWFUL. I hope Disney restores it ASAP. Maybe they could release it with Zorro and have a Guy Williams/Disney Treasures wave. If it's only 3 episodes, what else could they include with it? I'm not entirely familiar with what other 3-part adventure Disney TV shows there are.<<

My feeling is that they should keep these sets to a single theme. The Swamp Fox/Elfego Baca set was a big mistake when Swamp Fox could have filled a set in its entirety (and I hope someday it gets redone that way)

A Zorro set could have both the series compilation features "The Sign of Zorro" and "Zorro the Avenger" along with the four one hour "Walt Disney Presents" episodes -- and bonus features.

"The Prince and the Pauper" - like "Dr Syn" should have the theatrical cut as well as the three one-hour shows - - and then there is the Mickey Mouse featurette cartoon version to support it beautifully. Plus an extra about Walt's relationship to Mark Twain material?

[merlinjones]

>>A lot of people have forgotten Disney's 'The Legend of Young Dick Turpin' was another<<

Freddie & the Dreamers did a cool cover of the theme song!!!

[disneyfella]

I have a transfer of "The Prince and the Pauper" on DVD from some film print in Europe. It is of the theatrical cut of the film, and while not anywhere near the perfection of "Dr. Syn", it is much better than the film quality they showed on the bonus. The point is, it already is much better than what they are showing.....now if only they'd actually put some time into it.

As for 3-part episodes and 4-part episodes which would make good WDT sets in the future, here are a few I could think of off the top of my head:

The Prince and the Pauper
Gallegher
Daniel Boone (the one with Dewey Martin)
The Further Adventures of Gallegher
Gallegher Goes West


Then, of course, there are my favorite Wonderful World of Disney movies that I'd like to see restored and available on DVD:

The Waltz King (this one soooooo needs a beautiful DVD release and a TON of bonuses!)
Excapade in Florence


There's a few more that were made during Walt's time, but those are my favorites

[gardener14]

I'd also love to see the Prince and the Pauper available again. I had long hoped it would be released someday, but I had no idea it was in such poor condition. Please, Disney, restore and release this film.

[Flanger-Hanger]

Oh that's what I forgot, The Waltz King, I'd love to see that!

Oh and Merlin, when I meant release them together I meant 2 separate tins. One with Zorro the other with Prince and the Pauper (and I like your idea of theatrical and TV cuts). As for Swamp Fox/Elfego Baca, I'm in the minority of opinion in that I like the idea of the set, however not releasing the rest of it is still a disappointment to me and finishing that set up would take priority on my list (after Zorro, which should have been like Wave 2 IMO) now that Dr Syn is released.

[merlinjones]

I'd definitely like the theatrical cuts of "Escapade in Florence" and "The Horsemasters", both with our lovely Annette. Whether as Treasures or just simple movie releases!

[Mouseketodd]

I'm glad to see the suggestions of the Gallegher and Daniel Boone titles.

I'd also like to see Texas John Slaughter and The Saga of Andy Burnett -- and keep in mind, I've never watched some of these (I have 3 of the 4 DB episodes on Disney VHS.), and I still want these franchises to own!

[Darby]

We can hope so Darby.

Even before I saw any clips I thought Prince and the Pauper would make a nice companion to Dr Syn and now I really want to see it, but those clips were AWFUL. I hope Disney restores it ASAP. Maybe they could release it with Zorro and have a Guy Williams/Disney Treasures wave. If it's only 3 episodes, what else could they include with it? I'm not entirely familiar with what other 3-part adventure Disney TV shows there are.

Capital idea, Flanger-Hanger!

Darby

[Darby]

>>Even before I saw any clips I thought Prince and the Pauper would make a nice companion to Dr Syn and now I really want to see it, but those clips were AWFUL. I hope Disney restores it ASAP. Maybe they could release it with Zorro and have a Guy Williams/Disney Treasures wave. If it's only 3 episodes, what else could they include with it? I'm not entirely familiar with what other 3-part adventure Disney TV shows there are.<<

My feeling is that they should keep these sets to a single theme. The Swamp Fox/Elfego Baca set was a big mistake when Swamp Fox could have filled a set in its entirety (and I hope someday it gets redone that way)

A Zorro set could have both the series compilation features "The Sign of Zorro" and "Zorro the Avenger" along with the four one hour "Walt Disney Presents" episodes -- and bonus features.

"The Prince and the Pauper" - like "Dr Syn" should have the theatrical cut as well as the three one-hour shows - - and then there is the Mickey Mouse featurette cartoon version to support it beautifully. Plus an extra about Walt's relationship to Mark Twain material?

merlinjones:

Your ideas for potential Zorro and P&P sets are excellent!

Darby

[Voiceroy]

Add my name to this list. I used to have an old VHS copy as well as a copy of a vinyl record from Disney Records and wore them both out.

[bcotter]

Another board I frequent has been chatting about the availability of the live action "The Price and the Pauper" through streaming video on Amazon and on a Disney site. That got us talking about what was cut from the original three part TV versions to create the foreign theatrical release, so I decided to pull out some tapes and take a look.

The first thing I noticed is that the two tapes I had from the theatrical version previously aired on The Disney Channel have completely different opening titles from the version available on Amazon. While the Amazon one looks like a traditional film version, with the various credits on a series of title cards, the ones from TDC are simply white text superimposed over a copy of the book cover, along with the anthology theme music. The two TDC copies were taped several years apart so it's interesting to see they used that same version both times.

After the credits I believe they're going to prove to be the same film, but I'm watching one of the TDC ones now and will compare to the Amazon version next.

Turning to the original three-part version, here's the official running times:

Part 1 - The Pauper King
Billboards, bumpers, etc. 4:26
Commercials 6:00
Show 46:08
-this includes 1:22 of titles and credits, and 5:49 of Walt's intro
Trailer 2:00
End Plug :30
-Total 59:04

Part 2 - The Merciful Law of the King
Billboards, bumpers, etc. 3:51
Commercials 6:00
Show 46:43
-this includes 1:22 of titles and credits, and 7:44 of Walt's intro
Trailer 2:00
End Plug :30
-Total 59:04

Part 3 - Long Live the Rightful King
Billboards, bumpers, etc. 2:51
Commercials 6:00
Show 47:43
-this includes 2:06 of titles and credits, and 8:37 of Walt's intro
Trailer 2:00
End Plug :30
-Total 59:04

Subtracting the credits and Walt's intros would seem to give the following show lengths:
Part 1 - 38:53
Part 2 - 35:37
Part 3 - 37:00
- Total - 111:30

The foreign theatrical version has a listed running time of 93:16, so it would appear that the cuts would come out to 18+ minutes. This version was first released in April 1962 in England, by the way, as Production #2145.

The Disney records show that the foreign theatrical version should run 93:16.

The version aired on Amazon runs 89:25.

The version aired on The Disney Channel runs 119:53. I ran the two at the same time and there are all sorts of trims in the Amazon version. Some are complete lines of dialog, or complete small scenes. Others are very quick cuts to shorten a scene where the king walks through the throne room, for example. I wonder why there are two versions like this. I found the same thing once before with two versions of "The Great Locomotive Chase" and one of them was not in any of the lists of official running times. I'll see if I can get any info from the folks at Disney. I'll also see if I can find out why the Amazon one is shorter than the one in the record books.

Has anyone seen the rumored 93 minute version?

I believe the 1 hr 59 minute one was used on the old white clamshell VHS release but I don't have a copy handy. Can anyone confirm it?

Thanks

Bill

[merlinjones]

Is the 89 minute version perhaps derived from a PAL to NTSC conversion source? That might account for the few minutes difference to the film's official 93 minute version -- as that process tends to "speed up" or "time compress" the master.

The old WDHV VHS tape from the 1980s runs 120 minutes (probably the same as TDC version) and appears to be the three full episodes all cut together sans Walt and recaps -- it doesn't have the theatrical titles either but cheap "burn in" made-for video titles over storybook.

Here's the VHS clamshell back cover (from an Amazon reseller) with run time listed:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41i8MNtXT4L.jpg

I haven't seen the online-download versions. In terms of picture quality, does one look any better than the other?

It would be nice to see a proper restoration of both versions like Dr Syn.

[Darby]

Any hope for this wonderful gem of a film seeing the light of day as a DVD release, even if it has to be done as a DMC Exclusive?

Like merlinjones, I would love to see both the three tv episodes and the theatrical version released, but would certainly accept a single release especially if it contained the version with the longest runtime.

[bcotter]

Good thought on the PAL-NTSC conversion, Merlin. That could well be it.

I hear rumors the show may be released on DVD, but only the foreign theatrical version, not a fully restored one with the original three shows. Disney seems to have lost their interest in anything that requires them to work on these older titles. So, at this point, if it does come out, it looks like the shortest version is the one we're most likely to get.

I believe both the Amazon and Disney sites are streaming the same master.

[Escapay]

Good thought on the PAL-NTSC conversion, Merlin. That could well be it.

We can take the PAL running time (89:25) and convert it into seconds (5365). Then multiply those seconds by 25 (for the 25fps speed of PAL) to get the total number of frames. That equals 134125.

Then we can just divide that by 24 (NTSC's speed) to get the number of seconds it would be in NTSC time. The end result is approximately 5588 seconds, which is 93:08. Only 8 seconds off from the 93:16 figure that Bill gave earlier.

BBFC also gives a classification for the film from April 5, 1962 that runs 93:27, which also is a close match to Disney's record for the length of the feature film version (since it's film and not video, it's still 24fps). However, I can't seem to find a home video classification for The Prince and the Pauper, which is where the PAL-speedup running time of 89:25 would have to come from for the UK.

I hear rumors the show may be released on DVD, but only the foreign theatrical version, not a fully restored one with the original three shows. Disney seems to have lost their interest in anything that requires them to work on these older titles. So, at this point, if it does come out, it looks like the shortest version is the one we're most likely to get.

That's a pity. I always hoped future Treasures sets (or anything in that vein) would include more of the Disneyland/WWoC serials that aired as feature films internationally.

albert