ZORRO IN THE COURT OF SPAIN (1962)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*, 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*                                                                                                                          ZORRO IN THE COURT OF SPAIN starts rather slowly but soon shapes up into a decent little swashbuckler. Most of the movie's alternate titles seem to emphasize the titular masked hero swashing his buckles in Spain, so I've no idea why the English dub I saw claims that the action all takes place in "Lusitania," which in recent centuries usually connoted Portugal. All the names involved in the court-intrigue are almost certainly fictional, so the change wasn't made to offset political connotations.                                                       

As with some of the other "Euro-Zorros" around this time, being set in Europe raises the stakes from the more modest adventures of the California-based Fox. A new grand duke, brother of the previous and deceased duke, has challenged the widowed duchess for the throne of Lusitania. The duchess has gone into hiding with her allies, but for some reason she's separated from her small daughter, and one of those allies takes the little girl to Lusitania Capital (I'll call it) to hide her from the enemy in a monastery/orphanage. The Duke either lives in the Capital or close to it, doing various tyrannical things with the help of his main henchman Captain Miguel (Alberto Lupo), so this choice of locations doesn't seem like the swiftest idea. In due time the Duke and Miguel will get their hands on the kid in order to force the duchess to abdicate. In addition, evil Miguel has been pestering Marquise di Villa Verde to let him marry beauteous Bianca (Nadia Marlowa), despite the fact that Bianca is betrothed to marry the Marquise's son Riccardo (George Ardisson), also Bianca's cousin. Riccardo comes to the Capital just in time for all these events, having been to Mexico for training as a young cavalier (one of two major flippings of the usual Zorro-script).                                                 

     
Apparently, Riccardo and his factotum Paquito got some advance intel on the troubles in Lusitania, because as soon as he arrives, he's already got the whole Zorro idea thought out. He immediately plays the part of the jaded aristocrat with no interest in local politics, so as to allay any suspicions from Captain Miguel and his sister Isabella, who oddly is currently married to the Marquise. The father of Riccardo and Isabella have no interpersonal relations, though, so this may be a change made by a translator. Some Zorro-stories give the main heroine an interfering aunt, which may be where Isabella comes from, but she only has one scene relevant to the narrative and totally disappears from the latter part of the movie. Anyway, Riccardo's louche act alienates both his father and Bianca, but it works to allow the hero to listen in on the plots of his enemies and work to counter them as-- Zorro!                                                           

   
   The fight-scenes are passable and Ardisson makes an okay masked avenger, even though he gets more mileage out of the Riccardo role. But the most interesting change is that although the heroine goes through the usual process of rejecting Riccardo while going gaga over his costumed identity, this time Zorro marries the heroine in his non-costumed identity.    No rationale is presented, though possibly Riccardo does this to block Miguel from forcing Bianca to marry him. Riccardo, knowing that Bianca doesn't love his false identity, refrains from making her share his marriage-bed. But of course, once he rescues the little girl from the evildoers and gives the duchess the chance to oust the evil Duke, Zorro can unmask and the two enjoy connubial bliss. The villains are not very stylish this time, but the romance is much better developed than in the majority of B-Zorros.