Talk:The Mark of Zorro (1940 film)

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A fact from The Mark of Zorro (1940 film) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 October 2004. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that 1940's The Mark of Zorro is often considered the best of the Zorro movies?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2004/October.

Wikipedia

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BetacommandBot (talk) 14:35, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The duel

The article stated: The film features a climactic duel between Zorro and Pasquale. Rathbone was known already in Hollywood as an outstanding classical fencer, but Power's own excellent skills are displayed here for the first time. The duel is ornate and full of subtlety, as opposed to Rathbone's duel with Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood, and the duel in The Mark of Zorro is considered by many movie buffs^{[weasel words]} to be the finest swordfight in cinema.^{[citation needed]} Staged by Hollywood's resident fencing master Fred Cavens and atmospherically shot by cinematographer Arthur Miller and director Rouben Mamoulian, the scene takes place in a single room and forces actors to fight rather than jump around in the scenery. In key shots, Cavens' son, Albert, doubles for Power (such as the shot where he plunges his saber through the bookcase). Scenes of fast fencing were undercranked to 18-20 frames per second, requiring that all the sound for the scene be post-synchronized. Rathbone suffered two scratches on his forehead during its filming, and later said of Power, "He could fence Errol Flynn into a cocked hat."

There are several issues. One is the lack of citations - some of which are marked - and the appearance of weasel words. Factual accuracy is another. According to other sources, Basil Rathbone was past hs prime, and ahooting the duel scene put Power in danger. The assumption that actors are good at real fencing, as opposed to stage fencing - an exercise in making a fight look good on screen -, is also strange. -- Zz (talk) 09:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Music used in The Adventures of Don Juan (1948)

Most of the music in Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) including the dominant theme, is taken directly from Alfred Newman’s Academy Award nominated score for The Mark of Zorro (1940). This is not subtle. Just play the opening of the earlier film on YouTube, or better yet, watch a proper copy online. I discovered this tonight (November 2019) watching Don Juan on TCM.

I have been wondering how Max Steiner got away with it, although Newman was famous for his collegiality, and may have said sure, why not. In 1948, TV had not yet invaded the nation’s living rooms. WOR’s “Million Dollar Movie” (1955-1966) and similar programs were years away, much less cable TV and AMC and TCM and home video. The chances anyone would notice were slim, and if someone did, who would they have told? I was much more surprised to find modern comments praising Steiner’s score online from people whom I would expect to know both films.

IMDB says that the score for Zorro the Gay Blade is an adaptation of Steiner’s score for Don Juan. Since Gay Blade was conceived as a silly sequel to the 1940 film, it seems much more likely that that was the inspiration for the music. Perhaps the ever-dreaded issue of rights played into this. Perhaps they were only able to get permission from the borrowers instead of the originators or their “ heirs and assigns”. It may have been a rights loophole that made Steiner’s “borrowing’ possible, Inquiring minds want to know. Merry medievalist (talk) 10:41, 19 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]