The Mark of Zorro (1940)

"The Mark of Zorro" is yet another re-telling of the legend of that masked avenger of the oppressed...Zorro. Douglas Fairbanks had set the standard in his 1920 silent version of the tale. For this one, we have the youthful Tyrone Power in the title role and the sinister Basil Rathbone as the chief villain.Don Diego Vega (Power) returns from Spain to find his father Don Alejandro (Montegu Love) deposed as Alcalde in early 19th century Los Angelis and replaced by the evil Don Luis Quintero (J. Edward Bromberg). Don Luis is himself influenced by the ambitious Captain Esteban Pasquale (Rathbone) and his scheming wife Inez (Gale Sondergaard).Seeing the people's anguish, Don Diego adopts a foppish persona to mask his attempts to overthrow the regime as the bold caballero Zorro. Don Diego becomes acquainted with Don Luis' comely young niece Lolita (an interesting choice of names) as played by the very young and very beautiful Linda Darnell. Zorro allies himself with the local padre (Eugene Pallete) in recovering the evil Alcalde's taxes taken from the starving peasants. After Zorro frightens Don Luis to the point of having him resign, Don Diego is challenged by Captain Pasquale to a duel to the finish thereby revealing his secret identity.The duel between Power and Rathbone is the highlight of the film and one of the greatest of such sword fights ever filmed. Rathbone, who was 20 years Power's senior was nonetheless an expert swordsman and probably could have bested any of his on screen opponents (including Errol Flynn) in combat. Power had taken fencing lessons along the way and doesn't look out of place here.Gale Sondergaard was one of evilest of female villains of the 1940s, although she is not given much to do here. She would appear as "The Spider Women" with Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes in 1944's "The Spider Woman". Montegu Love had been on the business end of John Barrymore's sword in "Don Juan" (1925). Eugene Palette had played a sword wielding friar previously in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), which by the way contains another classic duel between Rathbone and Errol Flynn."The Mark of Zorro" appears to have been modestly produced, in Black and White and on the Fox back lot. It has way too many interior scenes and even the climatic duel is confined to one room. But it does have the handsome Power just emerging as a super star and the gorgeous Miss Darnell as the love interest.Avoid the computer colorized version of this film. The color looks like those old lobby posters and the lighting is just not right for color. Why can't they just leave the old classic B & W films alone?

The best swashbuckler ever made is how many regard 20th Century Fox's THE MARK OF ZORRO. Produced in 1940 for the studio by the uncredited Raymond Griffith and Darryl Zanuck the picture was Fox's answer to Warner Bros. who up to that time had, more or less, cornered the market with their finest array of swashbuckling adventures. With the perfect hero in Errol Flynn, who swept across our screens in such classics as "Captain Blood", "The Adventures Of Robin Hood" and "The Sea Hawk" and all to the brilliant music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, other studios found it difficult to equal Warner's expertise in creating such flagship adventures. But Fox's THE MARK OF ZORRO was one that did and in its star Tyrone Power they even had a comparable hero to Flynn. From a story "The Curse Of Capistrano" by Johnston McCully it was splendidly adapted for the screen by John Taintor Foote, crisply photographed in black and white by the great Arthur Miller and the whole thing was adroitly handled by Russian director Rouben Mamoulian.It is 1820 and a nobleman's son Don Diago Vega (Tyrone Power) returns home to California after spending some years at a military school in Spain. But he finds the province has greatly changed and has fallen under the dictatorship of an autocratic governor Don Luis Quintero (J.Edward Bromberg) and his ruthless sword wielding army Captain Estaban Pasquale (Basil Rathbone). The people are heavily taxed and oppressed. Don Diago covertly takes up their cause and dons the guise of a masked avenger while maintaining a foppish and carefree persona to his family and friends. He raids the army coffers, returns to the peasants their meagre funds and avenges any harm that they incur. The picture ends with the people rising up against their oppressors, regaining their freedom from tyranny and Don Diago and Pasquale locked in an outstandingly staged sword fight to the death.Performances are superb from the entire cast. The swashbuckling Don Diago Vega is one of Ty Power's most likable and best remembered roles. It also revealed his fine flair for comedy. As the fop he could be quite amusing (on being informed that the villainous Captain Pasquale was once a fencing instructor in Madrid Don Diago looks through his monocle at Pasquale, sighs wearily and quips "How exhausting"). It's a shame he didn't do more movies like this. Two years later he was a pirate on the high seas in the enjoyable "The Black Swan" and in 1947 he appeared in Fox's colourful epic on the Conquistadores "Captain From Castile" but that was all. Historical roles in "Prince of Foxes", "The Black Rose" and "Son Of Fury" were also enjoyable but none of these films ever gained any swashbuckling status. Excellent too was Basil Rathbone. His villain almost as sly and as cunning as his Guy of Gisbourne in "Robin Hood" two years earlier. And supplying the love interest was the lovely Linda Darnell who the following year would again star with Power in the Fox classic "Blood And Sand" again directed by Mamoulian. Also of interest is the casting of Eugene Palette as the church friar almost exactly the same role he played in "The Adventures of Robin Hood".Of some note also is the brilliant score put together and conducted by Alfred Newman. The exciting main Zorro theme was written, not by Newman, but by the uncredited Hugo Friedhofer. It is an exhilarating heroic motif that the great Korngold himself would be proud to have written for Flynn. Great music is but one element that makes THE MARK OF ZORRO an unforgettable movie. Its popularity has endured since it was made almost 75 years ago and no doubt it will continue thrilling audiences for a long time to come.

One thing this movie has is impressive horse riding chase scenes that make you grin at the ingenuity of the director and the cinematographer. The films pace is so exciting that you know that you just have to dip your hat to how it was captured on celluloid. Basil Rathbone (who is famous for playing Sherlock Holmes in the Rathbone/Bruce series that contained 14 movies between the years of 1939 – 1946) is a famous Hollywood swordsman, and I also read that Tyrone Power was also good with sword, and so I eagerly waited for the duel scene between the two.When the duel started, the idea that this was actually both the actors willing the swords and not just mere stunt men also added to the fun, as the duel is just wonderful and masterful, the grace and the speed the two masterful swordsmen displayed on screen is one that I will always remember, and one that I ask others to see, because I have not seen better fencing than that as of now.The movie had scenes that jumped at you, there was another chase scene where Zorro (Tyrone Power) made his horse jump off a bridge into a stream and made the horse ride/swam to shore, it was such a sight I raised my brow in amazement, wondering how many shots the director had to take to get that scene right.The Mark of Zorro is fun, although you can pick out plot holes and wonder how the hero was planning to achieve anything in the riot like ending, but the movie was fun to see all the way through, the story arc is taken from the story The Curse of Capistrano written by Johnston McCulley in 1919, the book introduced the masked hero Zorro, who was like Robin Hood in most sense. Set in Southern California during the early 19th century, the plot deals with Don Diego Vega/Zorro (Tyrone Power), who returned home to find that his town is being extorted by the Governor and his henchman Captain Esteban Pasquale (Basil Rathbone).Diego then became the mask vigilante Zorro to be able to able to defend his people from the hand of the corrupt Governor.The Mark of Zorro is a true oldie; the score is so obvious and doesn't blend with the movie (from my own point of view) although the score did get an Academy Award nomination.The Mark of Zorro is one you can take the time to see even if it is just to see the duel between Power and Rathbone.www.lagsreviews.com

The only ingredient missing here is a Fox budget that would have provided Technicolor photography as a part of the film's lush production values. However, even without three-strip Technicolor, this B&W version of the famous legendary outlaw is acted to perfection by the entire cast.Tyrone Power goes with great ease from the fop to the swashbuckler Zorro, all the while displaying a great deal of charm and good looks. The romantic role of "the girl" goes to Linda Darnell who is more than adequate in the looks department herself.In the chapel scene and "The White Sombrero" dance routine they have a chance to show the kind of sparks that made them popular movie stars of the '40s. Linda was just about to break out of her virginal roles and about to play more tempestuous heroines, but she does an excellent job as Power's love interest.Basil Rathbone is at his finest for the final dueling scene, surely even more robustly performed than the one he shared with Errol Flynn in THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD--and that's really saying something. Power seems to be evenly matched with Rathbone in his skilled swordsmanship.Alfred Newman's fitting pseudo-Spanish background music provides just the right amount of excitement to make this a most entertaining show. And the supporting cast--including Gale Sondergaard, J. Edgar Bromberg, Eugene Palette, Montagu Love, Janet Beecher and others is excellent.By all means worth watching anytime for sheer entertainment.