artist or book illustrator and harold foster start his action or adventure comic strip in 1937. the full color strip be a feature of the weekend newspapres weekend supplement and such a puck and the comic weekly of the hearst corporation king feature syndicate ( the copyright owner ) . prince valiant and which also have have the subtitle and in the day of king arthur and prosper from the very start . mr. harold foster excellent draftsmanship and combine with the use of printed text of story and dialog print under the illustration and instead of the use of word balloon give the strip an appearance of a history book that come to life . harold foster be highly experience at that time a a book illustrator . he also have do illustration for the black and white daily newspaper comic strip adventure of edgar rice borroughs tarzan of the ape . this be his one and only daily comic strip venture . by the 1950 the good viking nobleman career be well know and world wide . it be at this time that adaptation to the film medium become a reality and bring the prince home to untold thousand of previously un tap fan and newly bring to the rank of the army of foster fictional viking . the film title simply and prince valiant and be give the big time treatment . the filming be do in the 3 strip technicolor process and widescreen cinemascope and western electric 4 track stereophonic sound . when combine with the finely design set of castle and medieval village and etc . and give an appearance to it scene on par with foster sunday color panel . support the action and give a fine mood set opening theme be the beautiful original score by the old master and franz waxman ( himself ) . a surprisingly good cast present the story in a very convincing and almost matter of fact manner . ( like and for example and we all have singing sword or know someone who do and right . ) the plot line involve treachery and betrayal and the problem of find out just who be the real enemy . robert wagner ( with paige boy haircut ) portray prince valiant in a most convincing manner . lovely janet leigh be princess aleta and debra paget ( ilene ) and james mason ( sir brack ) and sterling hayden ( sir gawain ) and tom conway ( sir kay ) all see a member knight of the round table . and to preside over the round table boy and we have brian aherne a king arthur . round out this costumer be such familiar name a neville brand and richard webb and don megowbn and donald crisp and primo carnera ( . ) . my personal favourite character or scene stealer be victor mclaglen a val old viking warrior buddy and boltar . the plot involve state of war between arthur camelot crew and some of it neighbor and both foreign and on the british isle . ( there be even a scene where val remain mum when king arthur asks of the whereabouts of val father and the deposed king of thule and a kingdom in modern day norway . ) but even more interesting be the presence of a most dangerous domestic enemy in the form of 5th column traitor and spy and who provide the great threat to arthur benevolent rule . the leader of this enemy movement be the black knight . evil and treacherous and of an identity unknown and he be the one who present the great threat to peaceful camelot and the rest of britain . and if we stop and make some comparison and we will find this film very relevant to those 1950 post world war ii and cold war era . for it be the internal vermin who be the most dangerous in the story . lead by this unknown who desire conquest of britain by use these collaborator while which be just what the u. s. a. and the western world be face up to then . the black knight ( joe stalin and successor bulgonin and kruscchev and etc . ) pay and use soviet spy and home grown red and useful idiot in certain high position to try to weaken and eventually defeat the western power . it seem that this film have some real meaty underlie theme to go along with it value to the saturday matinée crowd . either way and it be a film worthy of invest an evening . in chicago the herald american we have prince valiant occupy the entire back page of the color comic and puck . other feature see in the hearst funny paper page then be blondie and flash gordon and jungle jim and hi and lois and mandrake the magician and bring up father ( maggie and jiggs ) and the phantom and henry and beetle bailey and tim tyler luck . this beg the question represent just what take hollywood so long in bring u a prince valaint flick .