The Mark of Zorro ***** (1940, Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Eugene Pallette) – Classic Movie Review 2314

Director Rouben Mamoulian’s 1940 adventure classic remakes the 1920 Douglas Fairbanks Sr silent classic and stars an ideal Tyrone Power as Zorro. Though thought of as a light-weight star, Power is thrilling as Don Diego, a Californian nobleman’s son in 1820 who plays the fop but puts on the masked avenger’s kit as the sword-wielding Zorro to see off the villainous dictatorship that has taken over the state.

Even more thrilling, though, is the movie’s chief villain, Basil Rathbone, who plays the evil Captain Esteban Pasquale with lip-smacking brilliance and whose master swordplay comes in brilliantly for the breathtaking climactic duel with Power (who is stunt doubled by Albert Cavens). Linda Darnell plays the heroine, lovely Lolita Quintero, Gale Sondergaard is Inez Quintero and Eugene Pallette is Fray Felipe.

Director Mamoulian casts quite a spell, weaving impressive directorial magic with the pace, mood and atmosphere, turning this into a lusty remake and worthy successor of Douglas Fairbanks Sr’s 1920 classic. John Taintor Foote and Garrett Fort’s screenplay is based on the novel The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley. Alfred Newman’s stirring score was Oscar nominated. Arthur Miller’s cinematography helps ensure that it’s a good-looking movie in black and white, though ideally it needs Technicolor.

Also in the cast are J Edward Bromberg, Montague Love, Janet Beecher, Robert Lowery, Chris-Pin Martin, George Regas, Belle Mitchell, John Bleifer, Frank Puglia, Eugene Borden and Pedro de Cordoba.

Zorro is a mix of The Scarlet Pimpernel and Caped Crusader, so it’s fascinating that this was the film that Bruce Wayne’s parents Thomas and Martha Wayne took him to see on the night they were murdered.

It was remade in 1974 and again as The Mask of Zorro in 1998.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2314

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