Thoughts on ZORRO, Part 2: The early films (spoilers)

As I mentioned last time, The Curse of Capistrano was adapted to film in The Mark of Zorro (1920), the first of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s swashbuckling historical adventure films. (Most of these early productions are in public domain and easy to find on YouTube or other streaming services.) The Fairbanks movie follows the plot of the novel fairly closely, aside from revealing Zorro’s identity to the audience much earlier, after his first fight sequence. It also changes Don Diego’s surname from Vega to de Vega, and has him out himself as Zorro before the final battle with Captain Ramón, for unclear reasons. It made more sense in the novel, where he didn’t unmask until after he’d secured a pardon for his crimes. Although that was contingent on the governor staying in power, while in the movie, he defeated the governor and Ramón and basically just said “Abdicate and leave the territory,” which somehow was supposed to be effective. Fairbanks is a surprisingly creepy Zorro, but his comic…