Film / News
Zorro unsheathes his sword at St. George’s
Often credited as being the world’s first action adventure film, Fred Niblo’s The Mark of Zorro (1920) not only launched an entire cinematic genre but also established Douglas Fairbanks’ superstardom as a screen swashbuckler.
Set in old Spanish California, the film casts Fairbanks as Don Diego Vega, a comically effete young nobleman with a taste for tasselled sombreros and juvenile silk-hanky magic tricks. But when danger calls, Diego swathes himself in black, straps on a well-honed sword and storms the countryside as the mysterious Zorro, slicing his initial into the faces of the “sentinels of oppression” and pausing only to boldly romance the woman (Marguerite De La Motte) to whom his shy alter-ego can hardly summon the courage to speak.
Newly restored by Lobster Films, this early classic is back on the screen at St. George’s on Monday 13 November, thanks to the award-winning South West Silents, with live piano accompaniment by Meg Morley.
“In so many ways The Mark of Zorro is the blueprint for all the action films going forward,” says South West Silents co-founder James Harrison. “Whether it’s Star Wars, James Bond, DC, Marvel, Terminator, Rambo, Indiana Jones or even John Wick, every action film we have seen can find its roots going way back to Fairbanks donning Zorro’s mask for the very first time in cinema history. Zorro has the chase sequence, the romance sequence and those all-important big stunt action set pieces as well.
“Fairbanks’ Zorro was one of the key inspirations for Bob Kane and particular input for the superhero which would become Batman. When you see Fairbanks jumping and battling in the action sequences in the The Mark of Zorro, you can see Batman right there.”
Go here for tickets.
All images: South West Silents/FPA Classics
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