In justifying his placement of Douglas Fairbanks among his "five greats" of cinema, the British director Michael Powell said, "His personality is in every foot of film he made. He was our first ballad-maker. Our first conjuror." A worthy assessment, but it was not until Mask of Zorro, five years and thirty-odd pictures into his career that he achieved that status and a reputation that persisted long after his death.
Up until this picture, Fairbanks was known purely as a comedy actor, popular and successful in his own right, but far from being a legendary genius like his pal Charlie Chaplin. His speciality, the one thing that really set him apart from his contemporaries, was blending physical comedy with his extreme athleticism. With The Mark of Zorro he revitalised his screen persona simply by reversing the pattern. Now the acrobatics were the main attraction and the comedy was the embellishment. But this is not simply an action flick with a bit of comic relief to spice up the "quiet moments"; the action sequences are simultaneously exciting and funny, and in fact there is very little comedy outside of the fights and the chases.
The Zorro fable is now very much in the public consciousness, but it was this version, adapted from an obscure short story, which made the character famous. It's been remarked that he can be seen as the first superhero – a weak and unassuming man who dresses up to become a dashing, confident and indomitable warrior, as do Batman, Spiderman and the like. Almost all Fairbanks' swashbucklers (and even some of his comedies, especially The Mollycoddle) feature some kind of transformation from wimp to wonder, but Zorro is different in that he is a disguise that Fairbanks's character puts on and takes off. There's a key difference here between this and the 1941 Tyrone Power version. Power is given a more developed backstory, and is actually shown inventing the foppish Diego out of necessity, while his Zorro is a disguised version of the real Diego as he was back in Spain. In 1941, the fop Diego is the creation whereas Zorro is the real man. In the Fairbanks version however, it's implied that the fop is Diego's real personality, and Zorro is an act he has to put on to become everything he wishes he was. And I think it may have been this aspect which attracted Fairbanks to the story. He was himself not an exceptionally attractive man, but he achieved charisma through the roles he adopted.
The director here is Fred Niblo, one of the exceptional craftsmen of the silent era, although his style does show the extent of Cecil B. DeMille's influence over film form at this point. Like DeMille, Niblo makes use of "Rembrandt" lighting, close-ups of hands, feet and faces to define characters and set scenes, and tight control over pacing and rhythm from scene to scene and shot to shot. The latter comes in very handy in giving the action sequences the right punch, a good example being the first entrances of Diego and Zorro which are played for their element of surprise. Crucially, Niblo is able to direct mass action, making the grand finale effective, striking that all-important balance between comedy and excitement.
After the resounding success of Mask of Zorro, Fairbanks would abandon his contemporary comedies to concentrate on a series of period swashbucklers, eventually donning the costume of all the great romantic heroes. The pictures that followed this one would be grander and more polished, and would contain far more depth in terms of story and characterisation. However, the Mark of Zorro, while weaker on many levels, does have a pace and directness that makes it one the most watchable of all Fairbanks features.
Up until this picture, Fairbanks was known purely as a comedy actor, popular and successful in his own right, but far from being a legendary genius like his pal Charlie Chaplin. His speciality, the one thing that really set him apart from his contemporaries, was blending physical comedy with his extreme athleticism. With The Mark of Zorro he revitalised his screen persona simply by reversing the pattern. Now the acrobatics were the main attraction and the comedy was the embellishment. But this is not simply an action flick with a bit of comic relief to spice up the "quiet moments"; the action sequences are simultaneously exciting and funny, and in fact there is very little comedy outside of the fights and the chases.
The Zorro fable is now very much in the public consciousness, but it was this version, adapted from an obscure short story, which made the character famous. It's been remarked that he can be seen as the first superhero – a weak and unassuming man who dresses up to become a dashing, confident and indomitable warrior, as do Batman, Spiderman and the like. Almost all Fairbanks' swashbucklers (and even some of his comedies, especially The Mollycoddle) feature some kind of transformation from wimp to wonder, but Zorro is different in that he is a disguise that Fairbanks's character puts on and takes off. There's a key difference here between this and the 1941 Tyrone Power version. Power is given a more developed backstory, and is actually shown inventing the foppish Diego out of necessity, while his Zorro is a disguised version of the real Diego as he was back in Spain. In 1941, the fop Diego is the creation whereas Zorro is the real man. In the Fairbanks version however, it's implied that the fop is Diego's real personality, and Zorro is an act he has to put on to become everything he wishes he was. And I think it may have been this aspect which attracted Fairbanks to the story. He was himself not an exceptionally attractive man, but he achieved charisma through the roles he adopted.
The director here is Fred Niblo, one of the exceptional craftsmen of the silent era, although his style does show the extent of Cecil B. DeMille's influence over film form at this point. Like DeMille, Niblo makes use of "Rembrandt" lighting, close-ups of hands, feet and faces to define characters and set scenes, and tight control over pacing and rhythm from scene to scene and shot to shot. The latter comes in very handy in giving the action sequences the right punch, a good example being the first entrances of Diego and Zorro which are played for their element of surprise. Crucially, Niblo is able to direct mass action, making the grand finale effective, striking that all-important balance between comedy and excitement.
After the resounding success of Mask of Zorro, Fairbanks would abandon his contemporary comedies to concentrate on a series of period swashbucklers, eventually donning the costume of all the great romantic heroes. The pictures that followed this one would be grander and more polished, and would contain far more depth in terms of story and characterisation. However, the Mark of Zorro, while weaker on many levels, does have a pace and directness that makes it one the most watchable of all Fairbanks features.