{"id":4651,"date":"2016-08-17T19:47:21","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T00:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=4651"},"modified":"2016-08-17T19:47:21","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T00:47:21","slug":"belated-movie-reviews-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2016\/08\/17\/belated-movie-reviews-74\/","title":{"rendered":"Belated Movie Reviews"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Mark of Zorro<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (1940) slashed its way across our\u00a0screen, and it was a light-hearted doozy, featuring Tyrone Power in the eponymous role, and a youngish Basil Rathbone playing his foil, the evil Capitan Esteban. For all that the newly returned Don Diego (Power) swiftly falls into the foppish, jaded ways of a foolish young nobleman, the story moves along at a spirited clack. For motivation, it depends, perhaps too much, on tax-collecting scenes and mild threats of a whipping, and while Basil tries to exude evil, I fear only the greed of a decayed fencing master comes through. Mere assertion of their dishonorable ways lack in punch, and perhaps a bit more depiction of their depravity would have boosted the story.<\/p>\n

No matter. Power’s Zorro is dazzling as he fools his parents, his priest, and the buffoonishly greedy leader of this California colony, while courting the man’s\u00a0beautiful niece, although I did have to wonder what she’d done to admire his wide-eyed admiration – but perhaps such would not be historically accurate. He is clever, but not without error, which is good to see – but his opponents, even the redoubtable Esteban, have no true wit about them. A fine, if short, dueling scene is tossed in, and I felt their footwork was excellent, and while the stage combat requires rather large moves, I saw a number of feints, circular parries, and other credibly executed maneuvers – only the head slashes seemed ridiculous.<\/p>\n

Zorro escapes once again, breaking the heart of the wife of the evil leader while winning that of the niece, and all comes out well. A fine way to spend a tired evening or a rainy afternoon. The careful ear may even detect a few double entendres.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Mark of Zorro (1940) slashed its way across our\u00a0screen, and it was a light-hearted doozy, featuring Tyrone Power in the eponymous role, and a youngish Basil Rathbone playing his foil, the evil Capitan Esteban. For all that the newly returned Don Diego (Power) swiftly falls into the foppish, jaded \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4651"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4653,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4651\/revisions\/4653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}