THE MARK OF ZORRO (1974)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*, 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*                                                                                                                          Director Don McDougall, whose long list of TV episodes includes some very nice work for shows like RAWHIDE and Classic TREK, probably had to make the best of things when he drew this assignment. He had to take the script for the 1940 MARK OF ZORRO, one of the most sumptuous swashbucklers of the Classical Hollywood era and squish its plot and action down into about 75 minutes. Still, enough of the mythic aspects of the 20th-Century Fox version of Zorro come through that I can give this 1974 MARK a fair rating.                                                                                                       

 The telefilm's best asset is star Frank Langella in the dual role of Zorro and his foppish civilian ID Diego Vega. The actor had to follow closely in the shoes of Tyrone Power, but I thought he gave both characters as much mojo as anyone could under the circumstances. Ricardo Montalban is in a similar position, playing Esteban, the military power behind the corrupt alcalde's rule, but in some ways he's better off, since his normal acting-style was more florid than that of his predecessor, and thus his Esteban doesn't seem too derivative. The rest of the cast deliver decent perfs, from Gilbert Roland and Yvonne deCarlo as Diego's dad and mom, to Robert Middleton and Louise Sorel as the alcalde and his perhaps unfaithful wife. Anne Archer gets one good scene as the romantic interest Teresa-- the one taking place in the church, where Zorro's pretending to be a priest-- but her character doesn't get nearly as much attention as the Linda Darnell version did. She doesn't even get a final clinch with the hero at the conclusion. Her casting in terms of her age is a bit odd too. In the 1940 film, Gale Sondergaard, then a little over forty, played the aunt of Teresa, and that role was played by Linda Darnell, who was then seventeen. In contrast, Anne Archer was only seven years younger than Louise Sorel. There's an odd remark by Middleton's character about how some figure akin to Zorro may have been observed in "The Pyrenees" of Spain, which was perhaps meant to address where Diego got the idea of Zorro. Possibly this remark was in the 1940 film too, but I'm not inspired to find out.