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Mark Of Zorro (The)
R1 - America - Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak and David Cormack (20th March 2006). |
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The Film
 MADRID - when the Spanish Empire encompassed the globe, and young blades were taught the fine and fashionable art of killing. So starts The Mark of Zorro. But immediately it presents a problem, if I’m going to see killing I’m more than happy for it to be fine but ‘fashionable’? I dunno if it’s just me but I was seeing homoerotic subtext like this all throughout this movie, from the priest grabbing Don de Vega’s (Tyrone Power) arm and commenting on what a big muscle he has through to that campy lilt that all movies of this age seemed to possess. Now this is not the Antonio Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Anthony Hopkins tripe released in 1998, oh no no, this 1940 edition had crowd pulling stars such as Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone and the effervescent Tyrone Power (has there ever been a more unlikely real name?) as our hero Zorro. The gist of the story of Zorro is pretty well known but to those of you who don’t here goes: A man returns to his hometown of Los Angeles from Spain only to find that his old man isn’t the mayor anymore and that a villainous dictator has taken over. On the surface he appears not to care but by night he is - Zorro! Masked Avenger. The first thing this reviewer likes to, err, review is the positive things from any movie. The swordplay, I have to admit that I have a soft spot for all films swashbuckling and this film buckled a lot of swash. The final showdown is something spectacular which quite frankly didn’t go on long enough. There was enough excitement in this fight to sustain another few minutes but sadly this was the only real instance of good quality fencing. Linda Darnell was superb. She played the love-interest of Zorro and not only was she beautiful but she was by far and away the best actor in this film. Her performance as the young niece confused by this potential suitor whilst at the same time loving his alter-ego was startling and made all the more remarkable by the fact she was 17. 17! I could never star opposite an actor such as Tyrone Power at that age AND manage to upstage him. Crikey. Pity she died at 42 in a house fire. The idea this film was trying to convey was also nice, that if you don’t like or respect authority then you should don a camp outfit over the top of your camper tight blue pants and rob the tax collectors. Who hasn’t wanted to rob the tax department wearing a ninja turtle’s mask? But the message was somewhat lost in the translation and now I shall move on to why. Have you ever been playing a video game, a first person shooter, and you’re firing from afar into a group of enemies and you kill one whilst the others just stand around and don’t react at all to your barrage of bullets? That’s a problem in this film; the opposition is just so bloody stupid. The main bad guy is a complete caricature of your Spanish dictator right down to his matador type outfits and it’s this sort of thing that worries me, I know that the 1940s weren’t too concerned with being politically correct but I wondered if this film was being a bit racist. Example: Cut scene to a dusty village, it’s mid-afternoon so in that heat people are all taking a siesta, the camera pans round and the Mexican looking folk are just sitting all over the village with their heads down and the giant sombreros covering their heads. Do we really need this sort of stereotype perpetuated? It’s like having a German with a white moustache and monocle come into a prison and saying ve have vays of making you tock. It adds nothing to the film other than unintentional humor. Another negative for me was the colorization of the film. I’m always very skeptical to hear that a film has been colorized for the very reason that I can never be sure that the original director of the film wanted his piece colorized. And how do we know that they got the right colors? Imagine if in 60 years someone goes back and completely colors in Sin City (2005) or Schindler’s List (1993). It immediately makes me distrust the film and particularly where they seemed to live by the mantra if in doubt, go with pastels. But the worst, absolute worst part of this film was Tyrone Power‘s moustache. It was a yucky little pencil thin dirty sanchez of a moustache, and just because I know you’re all interested in the titillation of it, here’s my favorite bit of homoerotic subtext: My dear Esteban is forever thrusting at this and that.
Video
Presented in the film’s original theatrical ratio of 1.33:1, Fox have included two transfers on this disc, a colorized version and the original black and white. Although this is a Fox title, the color transfer was created by Legend Films. Using a relatively new 48-bit colorization process to achieve a final image in high definition or to film quality as stated in their official site. I’ve made numerous comments on the colorization of film in the past reviews so I won’t continue to write that same old bag. Although these colors are, compared to past colorization efforts, better, they still aren’t pitch perfect. Pastel colors drench the image, and skin tones are always a problem to get right. If you’d rather watch the film in its original state, flip the disc and watch the black and white version. Now for the black and white transfer, this is the same transfer as seen on the previously released Fox Studio Classics line. The image isn’t entirely the best and I would have loved to see a proper restoration rather than just a ‘remastered’ job. Although the contrast levels were fine and there was a minimal amount of film grain, I was disappointed to see that the print had a varied and plentiful amount of dirt and the occasional damaged spot in the form of scratches and speckle. This is particularly annoying in many scenes, I also found evidence of shimmer on several occasions. This is not really a good way to treat a supposed Studio Classic now is it? Although it’s the worst I’ve seen this transfer could you use a spruce up.
Audio
Three audio tracks are present on this disc, They include an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, the original English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono as well as a Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its original Mono track. I found that dialogue was clear and relatively easy to hear although distortion issues did rear its ugly head in the form of hiss and the occasional minor drop out in-between fade-outs and fade-ins to a couple of scenes. The music is transferred well and does peak, I heard no crackle and that’s a good sign. The track itself is rather weak but finely suited for this film. You wouldn’t really expect a full blown 5.1 track for this film, this Mono effort does the job but like the image could use a bit of clean up. Optional subtitles are included in English and Spanish.
Extras
Please note that all the extras are featured on the black & white side of the disc only. First up is the feature-length audio commentary with film critic / historian Richard Schickel. Schickel spends his time discussing all manner of topics in this track providing information such as the film history of the character of Zorro, he also discusses the film’s director and spots several of his trademarks throughout this film including scenes of spectacle cued to music. We look at the character traits of movie heroes from that era and how Power brings those to life in this character. Comments are also made on the story, the cast and most interestingly highlights the differences between this film and the 1920 Douglas Fairbanks version which seemed to put more emphasis on action while this version certainly has more drama-dialogue moments. Although this track provides a wealth of information a lot of the time Schickel spends his time describing what’s happening on-screen, I’ll admit that this may be a nice feature for someone who is blind, however I felt this was a waste of a perfectly good opportunity, because like many other people that have good eyesight I don’t really need anyone telling me what’s going on. There were also many, many moments of dead air, with Schickel occasionally waking up and telling us something. This track certainly got a bit boring at times but nice try Fox for at least trying to include some extras on this disc. Also included is the "A&E Biography Tyrone Power: The Last Idol" this documentary runs for 44 minutes 59 seconds and is by far the best extra on this DVD. This excellent piece covers the entire career of this prolific actor, and includes interesting behind-the-scenes facts from his film productions, we learn about his family, his drive as an actor and his many film roles. If you can’t find a published biography on this guy then this documentary is the next best thing. We also have a collection of Studio Classics bonus trailers that inlclude: - "All About Eve" that runs for 3 minutes 7 seconds. - "An Affair To Remember" that runs for 2 minutes 52 seconds. - "Anastasia" that runs for 2 minutes 18 seconds. - "Gentleman's Agreement" that runs for 2 minutes 59 seconds. - "How Green Was My Valley" that runs for 1 minute 43 seconds. - "Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing" that runs for 2 minutes 19 seconds. - "The Day The Earth Stood Still" that runs for 2 minutes 8 seconds. - "The Ghost And Mrs. Muir" that runs for 2 minutes 38 seconds. - "The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness" that runs for 2 minutes 19 seconds. Rounding out the extras is an envelope that includes 6 photo cards of stills taken during the production of the film.
Packaging
This Special Edition re-issue includes the previous Fox Studios Classic release and also includes a new colorized version that is present on the flip-side of the disc. This disc is packaged in an amaray case that is housed in a cardboard slipcase.
Overall
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