The Last Idol July 15, 2006
Posted by John Hodson in : Film & DVD Reviews, Swashbucklers , 1 comment so far(First published in another form at The DVD Forums)
My earliest cinematic memory: I was in the local flea-pit with my older brother watching the Saturday afternoon kids matinee - it was Zorro, one of those rehashed cliff-hanger serials from the 1950s. The next thing I remember is we were on the pavement, bruv was furious and I was grinning like a Cheshire cat. We’d been turfed out because I had made several spanking Tarzan calls.
When I was a very small child, there was something so incredibly right about having an imaginary sword fight, or strapping on a chrome cap-firing six shooter (or knowing all the names of the dinosaurs). What was it? Genetic memory? To be honest, while there may once have been mastodons striding the plains of south Lancashire (some would say, still are), or even the occasional damsal in distress (that’s a given), there weren’t too many frontier townships among those blue remembered hills that required a gun-toting, befringed stetson wearing lawman. So that theory’s canned.
Whatever. Hollywood plugged right into this boy child’s pleasure receptors with the swashbuckers who parried and thrust their way across the screen. Errol Flynn - more of him some other time I hope - was my idol in this respect, but Tyrone Power, similarly (but not quite) as charismatic came a close second.
Rouben Mamoulian’s The Mark of Zorro is a quite, quite fabulous swash-buckler starring a very young, very handsome Power; ironically, both actor and director were capable of much, much more. But Power was, against his wishes, type-cast in actioners, and Russian born Mamoulian was something of a maverick. He discovered new and interesting ways to move and use his camera, but when his vision was compromised he found himself at odds with his studio masters. His cv includes the 1931 Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Blood and Sand (again with Power) and uncredited contributions to Laura and Cleopatra.
There are some beautiful matte shots and the opening sequence sets the scene well, but there’s not alot that’s particularly innovative in The Mark of Zorro; it is precisely what Fox set it out to be, a cracking action adventure that, coming even after the Douglas Fairbanks silent original, is now accepted as the definitive screen representation of the masked avenger.
It is the early part of the 19th century and Don Diego de Vega (Power) is called back by his father from military service in Spain to his home in California. To his chagrin, he finds his beneficent father’s rule has been usurped by the evil and greedy Captain Esteban Pasquale (the magnificent Basil Rathbone), who is grinding the local peasantry into the dust. The quick-witted Vega takes on the persona of a hapless fop, but soon adopts the role of Zorro, a mysterious masked swordsman who strikes fear in the heart of Pasquale’s lackeys, leaving his trademark sword slash ‘Z’ in his wake. The gorgeous Linda Darnell plays Zorro’s obligatory love-interest, Eugene Pallette reprises his Friar Tuck impersonation as an unlikely Fray Felipe and there’s useful support from the later to be blacklisted Gale Sondergaad, Montagu Love and J. Edward Bromberg, Darnell’s cowardly, nasty uncle and puppet of Rathbone.
Of course, as is usual, there must be a showdown between Rathbone’s Pasquale - a master swordsman famed in Spain for his duelling skills - and Power’s Zorro, and it’s here that Mamoulian is at his most interesting. The duel takes place not in some great hall, or across several staged sets, but in one small room (as most scenes are). There’s a definite feeling of claustrophobia and danger as the two protagonists cut and thrust. Of course, it’s hard not to stifle a giggle when Zorro/Vega whips his blade across a candle as the pair loosen up; the candle appears untouched. ‘Ha-ha!’ sneers Pasquale; Zorro steps forward to lift the top off the decapitated candle and kill Pasquale’s laugh in his throat. Is Pasqule about to fight the effeminate Vega, or will he be in for more than he bargained for?
However, what follows is a sweaty, nasty, muscle-draining battle that really, really works and is one of cinema’s best filmed duels. The timing of the actors can only be marvelled at, and there are some wonderful lines: “I needed that scratch to awaken me!”
Power, who died at just 44-years-old, is wonderful in the title role, carrying off the duel personalities with aplomb, flashing that Tyrone Power smile and displaying every bit of the charisma that made him such a huge star.
Alfred Newman’s rousing score, nominated for an Oscar, adds to the fun, and it comes as something of a disappointment when the 94 minutes is up; I’m tempted to give another Tarzan call for old times sake.
The R1 Fox Studio Classics DVD contains the usual goodies that we have come to expect from this excellent range, with a fascinating 45 minute documentary on Power (Tyrone Power - The Last Idol), trailers of other FSC movies, the usual studious, but easy-going commentary from film historian Richard Schickel, with a myriad of facts and trivia. That said, of all the FSC’s I have seen, this print bears the most marks and damage. Don’t panic! This is far from disasterous, but the other movies in this range are mostly so perfect it comes as something of a shock to see any real damage at all! There are some artifacts, lines even a tear or two, but there’s a wonderful luminence to the transfer, blacks all across the greyscale so that the film positively leaps from the screen.
Now here’s the slightly controversial bit. In both R1 and R2, Fox has since reissued the film on a disc that contains both the original monochrome version plus a ‘colorized’ version, the work of ‘Legend’ films. There’s no denying that the crayoned in ‘Zorro’ is the product of cutting edge technology but to my eyes it simply looks ghastly; as if the whole thing had been sent, post mortum, to the undertaker for an open-casket makeover. Say ‘no’ to ‘colorization’ folks…
But there is a plus side. In prepping films for the colour process, Legend also gave them a thorough wash and brush up; hence the monochrome ‘Zorro’ looks spiffier than previously. In R1, the mono/colour version loses the ‘Studio Classics’ documentary Tyrone Power: The Last Idol, the R2 SE, however, includes it.
Just out in R1, the FSC has now finally released Henry King’s The Black Swan, in lush three-strip Technicolor. Fox is rumoured to have spent upwards of $5m restoring both films elements and prepping it digitally (the DVD claims ‘40 hours’ digital restoration - there must be at least one nought missing there).
And what a restoration it is; barely a mark, not a scratch to be seen anywhere, no misregistration problems - it’s simply beautiful, from the opening ‘20th Century Fox’ logo to the closing title shot. Anxious to mine the same vein of gold plundered by Jack Warner, Fox spent and spent big on this production and it shows, not just in the location shooting. Henry King had his production designed quite carefully to show off that colour for all that it’s worth - lots of blues and golds, the occasional splash of vivid red in a costume.
The film itself? Well, not quite as good as I remembered. Power is wonderful as the pirate captain Jamie Waring, unfortunately not only is his character largely unsympathetic for much of the film, but there’s no real spark between him and his leading lady, Maureen O’Hara. Funny that, I had the misfortune to watch Flynn and O’Hara (and BTW, Anthony Quinn, underused in both) in Against All Flags recently. A quite terrible low budget late career swashbuckler from Flynn (nevertheless, he props up the whole thing), but once again, no chemistry. None.
Laird Cregar (just three years from a tragic early death himself), is an impressively larger than life Henry Morgan (he only gets a ‘B’ though for his Welsh accent, ‘look you’), but George Sanders - what were you thinking of? His Captain Billy Leech spends the whole film leering and gurning in an extraordinary fashion. I can only think Sanders, a Hollywood exile (born in Russia of English parents), longed to spend a season or two in panto at Bognor. It makes Victor McLaglan’s appearance in Prince Valiant look like King Lear. Again, Alfred Newman’s score is excellent, but I longed for a little of Korngold’s magic touch.
A beautiful presentation of a beautiful looking film, that doesn’t hold a candle, quite frankly to, say, The Sea Hawk, or Captain Blood but still well worth a look. Avast, ah, me hearties!