But I love it. When I was growing up in California in the days of independent television stations, we had KRBK 31, out of Sacramento. They showed a lot of old movies and serials from the 40s as part of their programming. We got great, crappy stuff like “The Purple Monster Strikes” and “The Masked Marvel”, just a couple of the serials from Republic pictures.
We also got really bad films that hadn’t been seen in America before, and it was on channel 31 that I got my first look at what became two of my favorite really bad films, Supersonic Man (1979) and the entry we are covering today, Zorro from 1975.
Zorro, you may not know, has the distinction of being the superhero movie that has been adapted more times than any other. There are over 100 versions of Zorro out there, and it looks like there’s no slowing down for the character that was lifted from a 5-part magazine serial story called “The Curse of Capistrano.”
You may say that Zorro is no superhero, and if that’s true then we have to discount Green Arrow, Darkman and everybody’s favorite non-superhuman, Batman. So let’s skip over that shall we? Zorro 1975 was awful and great at the same time. It was made by an Italian production company, in Spain, and the version we got in the U.S. was dubbed. Badly. See why I love it already?
In this version, instead of Zorro fighting the Alcalde, he is the Alcalde, and a pansy of an Alcalde to boot. The main villain is Colonel Huerta, expertly played by Stanley Baker (the Guns of Navarone), who wants the governorship and power for himself. Zorro/Vega is played by Alain Delon (Serpico), who was supposedly a big deal in Europe at the time, but unknown here.
Vega is excellent at keeping Huerta off balance, and from guessing Zorro’s true identity. Even when Huerta is sure he has cracked the mystery, Zorro turns the tables on him again leaving the colonel guessing to the end. And what an end.
Zorro 1975, known in my house as “here’s to feeling free Zorro” is noteworthy for two reasons- the spectacular final sword fight, and the abysmal theme song. The fight was what I remembered about this at a when I was looking for it years later, and the song was the part I couldn’t forget no matter how hard I tried. Imagine my giddiness when I found this beauty on DVD at a discount store for only $1 (it was a horrible public domain copy, and I didn’t care).
The final fight between Zorro and Huerta starts outside at what was supposed to be a wedding, quickly went indoors to an armory, up some stairs and into a bell tower, where most of the action takes place. Huerta lands what he believes is a fatal blow, and begins to celebrate that the bandit is dead. Huerta has been wrong about Zorro the entire story and is wrong again. Zorro is alive and the meet atop a castle tower for the final battle. It’s the best Zorro fight I have ever seen.
The theme is sung in a high pitched falsetto by Oliver Onions (I’m not making this up) as he tells the story of how Zorro is back (I didn’t know he had left), and how he was saving the people. There’s even a kid in the film that plays the same Zorro melody on his flute. The version I saw on TV and found on DVD was the edited, chopped up version, so that the could get it into 90 minutes, and sell commercials. I found a digital copy years later that has about 20 minutes at the beginning of the film restored. That version makes a lot more sense. Regardless of which version you see, the fight is exceptional, and the theme song is exceptionally annoying.
IMDB gives this Zorro 6.4/10. I would agree just for that final fight alone.
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