Now we can safely discuss Zorro and old road trips without worrying about other stuff...

I don't think I've ever seen either of those movies. As a Zorro fan, I am lacking.

It's not Zorro, but I remember seeing the silent version of The Thief of Bagdad
on our local PBS station many years ago, and I was impressed at how well
it held up. I think it's a better film than the better known version made in 1940.



http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00014NF6G/?tag=imwan-20

My first exposure to the character.



Not long after, my dad described himself as a real gay blade in his youth and I don't think he understood why I laughed so hard.

Two bits, four bits, six bits a peso. All for Zorro stand up and say so!

Zorro the Gay Blade is one of those flicks that I will watch anytime. It's a great Sunday afternoon movie.
"Say something like a sissy boy"

I had the privilege to listen to Isabel Allende at the National Book Festival last October.
One of the things she mentioned was that she was contacted by the estate of Johnson McCulley
asked her to write a book about Zorro, and she wrote this fictionalized biography:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060779004/?tag=imwan-20

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0060779020/?tag=imwan-20

If you don't feel like reading a book book, Allende's book has been turned into a graphic novel:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1606900137/?tag=imwan-20

Which has begat a Dynamite series:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/160690115X/?tag=imwan-20

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1606900196/?tag=imwan-20

I'm amazed to learn Zorro was a silent movie only the next year after appearing in the pulps.

Yes, and Fairbanks came up with stuff totally on his own for that movie that McCulley added to the subsequent stories.

I wish REH had written 60 Conan stories.

Because IMWAN didn't have a general Zorro thread, this one was salvaged from its swamplike beginnings in the WANderground. It will be tidied up a little more, but for now, here is the latest Zorro news:

"Zorro" Trademark Declared Invalid in Europe

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-es ... ope-806823

I have had my doubts over the years that Zorro Productions Inc. has had all of the rights
that they claim that they have, so this is a very interesting ruling. Some of the Zorro rights
certainly must be in the Public Domain. I must be tired, though, because I can't really make
a lot of sense over what I just read in the above post.

All I really know is that I would like to see a nice, hardbound collection of all of McCulley's
pulp Zorro stories collected. I passed on the trade paperback collections of some of this
material a few years back (stupidly sized and incomplete), and Zorro Productions shows no
interest in producing the hard back volumes themselves.


EDITED: I went and read the actual 15 pages of court documents, and it's hard NOT to
come to the conclusion that at least the 1919 book and the 1920 movie ARE Public Domain.
As for the falsified copyrights, I lean toward believing the playrights claim: these trademarks
seem to be falsely obtained. And Zorro Productions seem to have been bullies forcing people
with they have rights that they do not. All of this is murky territory however. So I don't know.

Pity that Zorro Productions does, however, own the rights to most of the other Zorro pulps. So,
if they don't want to publish or let others publish them for my collection, they don't have to.

I heard about this earlier in the year. I was very happy to see Michael Kaluta doing some more comic work.
I will pick this up when collected, possibly pick up the actual comics. We'll see. Haven't bought a new comic
in several years now.

I am enjoying the Disney Zorro series right now, as released in the 90s and colorized. I got on a Zorro kick recently after reading the Matt Wagner collected stuff from Diamond, and this hits the spot. Guy Williams is great. The show really holds up well. As a prelude, I watched the Tyrone Power Mark of Zorro movie as well. While parts of that hold up too, the final act is somewhat disappointing and does not at all allow for any possibility of continuing stories. Odd, given that by then the character was well known and would seem ripe for a series of films like Tarzan enjoyed. Thankfully, the Disney show more than satisfies that itch.

Beachy did you see that someone has released a 6 volume set of the original pulp stories now (possibly since you posted about that 4 years ago)?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1975633180/?tag=imwan-20

That's a link to the final one.

To be fair, Johnston McCulley exposed the Zorro Identity at the end of the first story, "The Curse of Capistrano," so the movie version did the same. And the 1940's movie version was a remark of the first Zorro movie (FOr what it's worth, McCulley much preferred the Disney version of Zorro to any of the movies).

McCulley conveniently just ignored it in later stories and/or the locals just pretended that they didn't know.

That Disney Zorro series is pretty good. I bought the colorized set on DVDs (even though I had the black and white episodes also on DVD), but I've never watched them (only the colorized initial movie pilot for the series). Zorro—to me anyway—looks better in black and white.

I think I still haven't watched the final "episode" of the series. After the show had been cancelled, they made four longer-length shows for whatever The Disney Sunday night variety show was called. I forget. I have them (one of Disney's Vault offerings), but I think I only got around to watching the first three episodes of "Season 3."

Yeah, I've had the complete set for quite awhile now. I haven't read them all, though, since I was also picking them up as Audible was releasing audio versions of the main stories in each book. Sadly, though, the audio series looks like it will never see a fifth volume. They did "Mark of Zorro," "The Further Adventures of Zorro," "Zorro Rides Again," and "Sign of Zorro."

I wish Disney would release the Zorro and Son TV show on DVD.
Sadly, yes, it's not a very good show, and the attempt at humor falls quite flat most of the time.
Still… I'd like to have a nice version of it on disc.

I never read the original pulps, but I figured that must be how the first story ended. However I also figured that, Hollywood being Hollywood, they might have altered the ending a little to allow for a franchise. It's likely Tyrone Power would not have wanted to come back for more, but they could have recast someone else. Like Guy Williams, in a few years.

The 1974 made-for-TV Zorro movie starring Frank Langella is almost a scene-for-scene remake of the Tyvone Powers' Zorro.
At the end of it, Langella (as Zorro) does not unmask, but he discretely calls his dad "Father" to let him know in the closing scene.
I like that version. I think they were hoping for a new series to be based off of that, so they kept him masked.

If I remember correctly, in the second pulp story, many years had passed, Zorro's first wife had died early into their marriage,
and that Diego had at one time been a masked free fighter known as Zorro was now kind of a unproven legend of sorts, which
many did not believe.

The Duncan Regehr 1990s TV Zorro is pretty good. Try a few episodes of that to see if you like it.

I think that is next up for me after the Disney series. I saw some clips on YouTube and it looks good.