Amazon.com video review:
When they say they don't make 'em like they used to, they're talking
about
20th Century Fox's exhilarating The Mark of Zorro, starring Tyrone
Power as
the caped one, Linda Darnell as his love interest, and Basil Rathbone at his
scurrilous best as Zorro's nemesis. More textured than the 1920 original with
Douglas Fairbanks, this 1940 version has Don Diego/Zorro (Powers) returning from
Madrid to defend his father and rally the caballeros (noblemen) against Los
Angeles's corrupt new governor (J. Edward Bromberg), intent on taxing the
peons
to death.
If this all sounds like an Old California redo of the classic Adventures of
Robin Hood, that's because it is. Powers has a field day as Don
Diego, the
"fancy clown" betrothed to the governor's niece, Lolita (Darnell). Don
Diego
the effete snob performs silly parlor tricks, peers through pince-nez, and
yawns disdainfully at one and all. Power's cowardly alter ego is so
believable, his transformation to masked superhero becomes all the more
thrilling. Imagine Captain Pasquale's (Rathbone) shock when, in the film's
brilliantly choreographed showdown, this annoying fop turns out to be a
world-class swordsman.
Director Rouben Mamoulian, known for great period melodramas, does a
skillful
job of alternating garrison intrigue with big action scenes, including a
nighttime ride that climaxes with Zorro on horseback leaping off a bridge.
In the
romantic highlight, Lolita confides her innermost desires to a
suspiciously worldly friar. The first-rate supporting cast includes Gale
Sondergaard as the governor's
treacherous wife and the frog-voiced Eugene Pallette (Friar Tuck in
The Adventures of Robin Hood) as a padre in cahoots with the masked one.
Technically, this retelling rates an unqualified "Wow!" The cinematography,
obviously influenced by Goya, makes full use of chiaroscuro shadows, and
Alfred
Newman's Latin-flavored score is irresistibly rousing and romantic. --Glenn Lovell
