Don Diego Vega (Tyrone Power), a Spanish nobleman and soldier returns to his home in Spanish California to find that his father, the acalde (mayor) of Los Angeles, has been deposed by a greedy tyrant, Don Luis Quintero (J. Edward Bromberg). With the help of his militia captain, Esteban Pasquale (Basil Rathbone), Quintero is overtaxing the people and keeping the money for himself and his blatantly adulterous wife, Inez (Gale Sondergaard).
While playing the uncaring wealthy fop in his daily life, Don Diego Vega dons the mask of Zorro and rides through town righting the wrongs of the government. While hiding from Quintero's soldiers, Zorro meets Quintero’s niece, Lolita (Linda Darnell) and immediately falls in love. Unfortunately for Don Diego, she loves the heroic masked avenger, not the pretentious coward.
A remake of the 1920 film starring Douglas Fairbanks, The Mark of Zorro continues to make the popular pulp fiction character into a screen legend. The story line deviates somewhat from the magazine serials by Johnston McCulley, mostly to simplify the story and reduce the number of characters because of time constraints. The plot is not terribly complex, and it borrows elements from The Scarlet Pimpernel and Robin Hood, but it moves along and is quite enjoyable. Swashbuckling is not abundant, but there's enough of it to call this a swashbuckling adventure film, and the final showdown between Zorro and Captain Pasquale is well choreographed and exciting, even if the film is sped up a bit to make the swordsmen appear more intense and proficient.
The Mark of Zorro is a quick, fun adventure with an iconic hero, and even a bit of a love story. The special edition DVD has a double-sided disc, both in full screen, one side color, the other black and white.
