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DVD The Mark of Zorro
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
The Mark of Zorro is one of my all time favorites, and it is a movie that needs nothing to improve it. Classic swashbuckling adventure set in old California. And the black-and-white version that is on this DVD is a treat to watch--pristine in every way. It was with some trepidation that I put on the new color version. What had they done to my dear Tyrone Power? Yet when I viewed the new color version, I felt that I was getting to experience the beauty of the motion picture in a whole new and different way. It brought out detail that I had not seen before. The colorization process is light years ahead of any I have seen previously, and for awhile I forgot this was ever in black-and-white to begin with. It really breathes new life into this classic. I admit I watched the whole movie again! What a treat to be able to enjoy this movie in a new way. Great idea, and great special edition. Highly recommend!
Golden Age Adventure Classic
I first caught The Mark of Zorro (both the Tyrone Power and Douglas Fairbanks versions) on TV a few years ago during the hype for the Mask of Zorro movie, and immediately fell in love with them. While I've been raised on modern Hollywood cinema, these were movies that still held great appeal for me. Specifically for the Tyrone Power version, we get a quick, witty adventure with fantastic swordfights and great chemistry between Power and Linda Darnell. The whole production charms in that golden age Hollywood way, without suffering from the cheesiness that people usually associate with older flicks. It's one of my favourite movies.
About the DVD: While I'm a film purist in that "widescreen is better than foolscreen" kinda way, I must admit I found some novelty value in the colourized version we get here. I'm not familiar with the process, so maybe that's why I'm impressed by what I see. The colours aren't as rich as they would be if the movie was filmed in colour, but they do give me a new perspective on what the costumes and set design could've looked like (not sure if Fox dug into the vaults to find the original colours, or just came up with their own). Plus, as long as studios continue to offer the original black and white versions as Fox has done here, I can't find fault with them. The set also comes with 6 reprints of photos from the movie set, which are a nice bonus.
I got this disc dirt cheap, and it's more entertaining than most films these days. Definitely worth the purchase for any movie fan.
The Mark of Zorro
Wonderful black and white movie. My son loves Zorro, and this contains all good action, dialogue, etc. Wholesome family entertainment.
Dashing Errol Flynn is the definitive Robin Hood in the most gloriously swashbuckling version of the legendary story. Warner Brothers reunited Michael Curtiz, their top-action director, with the winning team of Flynn and Olivia de Havilland (Maid Marian) and perennial villain Basil Rathbone as the aristocratic Sir Guy of Gisbourne, and pulled out all stops for the production. It became their costliest film to date, a grandly handsome, glowing Technicolor adventure set to a stirring, Oscar-winning score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The decadent Prince John (a smoothly conniving Claude Rains) takes advantage of King Richard's absence to tax the country into poverty but meets his match in the medieval guerrilla rebel Robin Hood and his Merry Men of Sherwood Forest, who rise up and, to quote a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Errol Flynn - Olivia de Havilland Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 30 September 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Errol Flynn is one of those names that define movie stardom. Chiseled good looks that stopped just short of being preposterous. A brash and jaunty manner that charmed men and women alike. Whiffs of bad-boy scandal offscreen that only enhanced his legend (not for nothing did "In like Flynn" become a national catchphrase!). And enough marquee-worthy titles that in memory's ear ring like classics.
Flynn's stardom wasn't on a par with the richly ambiguous artistry of Cary Grant, or the deep, enduring heroic legacy of John Wayne, or the indelible character work amassed by Flynn's Warner Bros. contemporaries Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, and Edward G. Robinson. Still, this most celebrated of Tasmanian devils was a one-of-a-kind, often raffishly entertaining icon of Hollywood in the '30s... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The swashbuckler had been around long before Errol Flynn drew a cutlass, but the Tasmanian-born bit player reinvigorated the genre with his mix of dashing good looks, haughty insolence, and alluring confidence. Adapted from the novel by Rafael Sabatini (who also penned The Sea Hawk), this rousing adventure chronicles the travails of Peter Blood (Flynn), a righteous doctor unjustly sold into slavery for treating the wounds of rebels, a kind of British Dr. Mudd. Sent to a Jamaican plantation where he toils under the brutal whip of Lionel Atwill and seethes with passion for his fair niece (the astonishingly beautiful Olivia de Havilland), he escapes from bondage with his fellow prisoners and becomes the gentleman rogue pirate of the Caribbean. Director Michael Curtiz builds from one... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Errol Flynn - Olivia de Havilland - Lionel Atwill Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Five years after Captain Blood made him a swashbuckling star, Errol Flynn returned to the high seas as privateer Captain Thorpe in The Sea Hawk. Flynn plays the dashing gentleman pirate as dedicated patriot, looting Spanish ships for English coffers with the private blessing of Queen Elizabeth (Flora Robson, reprising the role from Fire over England). The film opens with a rousing sea battle: broadside cannon fire sends masts falling and splinters a-flying before Flynn's men take their Spanish quarry in a furious shipboard cutlass battle. The fearless fighter becomes a stumbling schoolboy when he falls for the Spanish ambassador's niece, but he's back in his element when he sails to the New World for treasure and lands in the middle of a deadly conspiracy. Big-eyed... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Errol Flynn - Brenda Marshall Director(s): Michael Curtiz DVD Release Date: Released the 19 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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