The Mark of Zorro

Douglas Fairbanks had spent five years as the grinning go-getter of modern-dress comedies when he put on a mask and a cape, and the rest of his career followed from it. The Mark of Zorro made him a swashbuckler and handed the movies the hero with two faces. By day Don Diego yawns, complains of the heat and amuses the ladies with tricks with his handkerchief; by night he cuts his initial into the governor’s soldiers. Noah Beery’s Sergeant Garcia blusters through every room he enters. Watch the last chase, Fairbanks taking the pueblo over its walls, through its windows and across its roofs as if the town had been built for running.