In every Zorro movie I’ve ever seen (at the moment I can recall only two: Zorro, the Gay Blade, starring George Hamilton, and The Mask of Zorro, starring Antonio Banderas – and some others of which I’ve seen snippets), the story opens with a young man inheriting the mantle of an elder Zorro. Never have I seen a movie about that elder Zorro. How did he get started? How did he decide to take up swashbuckling as a hobby?
As far as I know, only the movie The Mask of Zorro has that plot. In the other Zorro stories the premise is that Don Diego, ace swordsman returning from Spain to his natve California, learns of the corruption in Los Angeles and decides to hide his abilities under the guise of being a mild-mannered individual, becoming the masked and swashbuckling Zorro (“The Fox”) by night. Disnet told the story straight, for instance, in the first episode of its Zorro TV show. I haven’t seen the Douglas Fairbancks movie or the Tyrone Power remake, but I’m pretty sure from what I’ve read that they told that story, too. All of this goes back to the pulp magazine novel “The Terror of Capistrano”.
I’m glad you asked that. Just to set the record straight, when I returned to California in the Autumn of 1842…
Diarrheic swallows?
Senor Zorro first appeared August 9, 1919 in the magazaine ALL STORY WEEKLY. in a story called. THE CURSE OF CAPISTRANO. by Johnston Mc Culley. The story was in five parts ending in the Sept. 6 issue. and later collected an published as THE MARK OF ZORRO. The year the story is set is not given but it internal evidence marks it as around 1820. Don Diego Vega has returned from Spain to his home in the pueblo of Reyna de Los Angeles and finding the people are oppressed by the tyrannical goverment decides to adopt the idenity of EL Zorro , the fox. By the end of story the people are free, Don Diego can wed his true love and retire. But the story was so popular sequels quickly came.
I told you, it was the summer of 1844, not 1820!
The reason for the sequels is that I never gave up my struggle for the local Peons, although most of them are now bus drivers and petrol station attendants.
So now you’re after crooked traffic cops?
When I can spare the time, but honestly, there are bigger fish to fry. Besides, it’s difficult because Tornado isn’t as sprightly as he was, and he gets a little scared of the noise made by modern traffic. I myself don’t see as well as I used to and I must admit that occasionally I go through a red light when I’m distracted by some fiendish plot to rob the People of their righst at LA County Hall. But usually I just call old Sergeant Garcia (he’s quite senior in the California Highway Patrol now), and he sorts things out for me. They let me off with a warning, and I pay for a new shirt to replace the one with a bloody great “Z” carved into it. Force of habit, I’m afraid.
Zorro, Zorro, the fox so cunning and free!
Zorro, Zorro, who makes the sign of the Zee!"
I recommend the Tyrone Power movie, Mark of Zorro, if you haven’t seen it. Basil Rathbone plays a bad guy (surprise!) and exhibits expert fencing technique; Eugene Pallet plays a tough, no-nonsense populist friar, just as he did in The Adventures of Robin Hood, and may even be wearing the same cassock.
What a load of old codswallop. I am in no way fictional!