The Mark of Zorro

The Mark of Zorro
Rating: ***** (Essential)
Origin: USA, 1940
Director: Rouben Mamoulian
Source: Fox Studio Classics DVD

Tyrone Power’s family had been on the stage for generations, and he considered himself a serious actor. He finally broke into the movies in the mid-1930s and became a popular leading man for 20th Century Fox in parts both serious and not-so-serious. Meanwhile Warner Bros. was making a pile from Errol Flynn’s swashbucklers; though Fox didn’t have Flynn, they did have Power, and Darryl F. Zanuck decided Power was going to be Fox’s sword-slinging hero. To launch him in that new rôle they chose to remake The Mark of Zorro, the film that had launched Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.’s swashbuckling career. It wasn’t the kind of part Power really wanted to play, but he dutifully agreed, and the result was a classic that typecast him, rightly or wrongly, for the rest of his career.

This new Mark of Zorro was no slavish remake: the screenwriters rewrote the story from top to bottom, retaining its familiar and iconic elements, but adding new ones, such as naming the ruler of colonial Los Angeles the “Alcalde,” a title that became standard thereafter. But first they tacked on a prologue, showing Don Diego as a cadet in the hussars in Madrid, romancing the ladies and dueling the other hot-bloods. Then his father summons him back to California, where there’s no one at all to fight—so he abandons his sword by thrusting it into the ceiling (a nice callback to Fairbanks, who did the same thing at the end of his Mark of Zorro).

However, California is not the peaceful backwater Diego remembers. His father, the Alcalde, is Alcalde no more, forced out and replaced by the brutal Don Luis Quintero, who runs Los Angeles as a private fief for the enrichment of himself and his enforcer, Capitan Esteban. But it’s not all bad, for the new Alcalde has a sweet, clever, and beautiful niece named Lolita.

Meanwhile, the peons are taxed into destitution, those who can’t pay are whipped, and even the sanctuary of the church is violated—so Zorro must ride! And it turns out Power is tailor-made for the part: he’s dashing, romantic, and swordsman enough for the rôle of Zorro, and he has the sly comic touch needed to play the effete fop Don Diego. In this sort of film the hero is key, of course, but all the best swashbucklers feature a top-notch supporting cast, and this is no exception. To help launch their rival to Errol Flynn, Zanuck cannily hired two of the standouts from The Adventures of Robin Hood, namely Basil Rathbone for the rôle of the arrogant Capitan Esteban, and Eugene Pallette to play Fray Felipe, who is essentially Friar Tuck transported from Old England to New Spain. Linda Darnell also does fine as the dewy love interest Lolita, but the prize goes to Gale Sondergaard arching her astounding eyebrows as Inez Quintero, the Alcalde’s lascivious wife, who’s set her sights on Don Diego. She’s just delicious.

The two best scenes in this film are polar opposites: the first where Power and Darnell bandy words as Zorro, disguised as a monk, flatters the gradually-catching-on Lolita; and the second is nearly the last, when Power and Rathbone cross swords for the final duel. It’s exciting, and even better, it’s convincing: “Tyrone,” said Basil Rathbone, “could have fenced Errol Flynn into a cocked hat.”

The Mark of Zorro
Rating: ***** (Essential)
Origin: USA, 1920
Director: Fred Niblo
Source: Kino Video DVD

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., on his way to Europe on his honeymoon after marrying screen darling Mary Pickford, had brought a stack of All-Story Weekly pulp fiction magazines with him to read during the crossing on the steamer Lapland. He was struck by the hero of Johnston McCulley’s The Curse of Capistrano—Zorro, of course—and decided that he’d found the subject of his next movie. The next year Fairbanks played the starring role in the story he’d re-titled The Mark of Zorro; it was a gigantic hit, and Fairbanks was to spend the next ten years as a movie swashbuckler, appearing in lavish productions as Zorro, d’Artagnan, and Robin Hood.

The Mark of Zorro is a genuinely great film, the movie that elevated Douglas Fairbanks from star to superstar. His athleticism and charisma are legendary, of course, but damn it, the man could act: his foppish Don Diego is as hilarious and nuanced as his heroic Zorro is rousing and romantic. The villains are also uniformly excellent: Robert McKim’s Captain Ramon is every bit as mocking and arrogant as Basil Rathbone would be later, and Noah Beery’s swaggering rodomontades as Sergeant Gonzales even steal the scenes he shares with Fairbanks.

All the elements of the Zorro legend are here, fully formed: the black mask and cape; the hidden cave under the hacienda; the mute servant, Bernardo; even the black stallion, trained to follow its master’s orders. Plus the action scenes are great—Fairbanks famously did all his own stunts—the cinematography and direction are sharp and free from the theatrical staginess that plagued a lot of the silents, and the period details are spot-on.

Not to mention that this film is indisputably the direct inspiration for the Batman. If you’re a Batman fan but haven’t seen The Mark of Zorro, you’re just not fully aware if that character’s origin.