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Zorro (1974)

Zorro (1974)

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: With Alain Delon, you can't go wrong!
Review: "Zorro", the 1975 version starring Alain Delon, isn't a heavy-weight movie. But it features four action set-pieces that bring out all the excitement and romance and charm that the new movie doesn't quite catch. Alain Delon as Zorro is perfect - perfectly handsome, with a great sense of comic timing, and handles a sword with the best. I saw this movie when I was 12 when it was shown on TV on New Years Eve. It made a lasting impression. From the catchy tune "Zorro's Back" to the fantastic 20 minute sword fight at the end of the movie (when Zorro fights the bad guy, of course!) it's a great hour and a half. Highly recommended. Be sure to buy a copy of a *good* print that hasn't been cut.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: With Alain Delon, you can't go wrong!
Review: "Zorro", the 1975 version starring Alain Delon, isn't a heavy-weight movie. But it features four action set-pieces that bring out all the excitement and romance and charm that the new movie doesn't quite catch. Alain Delon as Zorro is perfect - perfectly handsome, with a great sense of comic timing, and handles a sword with the best. I saw this movie when I was 12 when it was shown on TV on New Years Eve. It made a lasting impression. From the catchy tune "Zorro's Back" to the fantastic 20 minute sword fight at the end of the movie (when Zorro fights the bad guy, of course!) it's a great hour and a half. Highly recommended. Be sure to buy a copy of a *good* print that hasn't been cut.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The "Unknown" Zorro
Review: 1977, I was in 7th grade, my hormones just beginning to carbonate. My parents let me stay up to see "Zorro" with Alain Delon. I spent the movie with my mouth open, my imagination reeling and my total sense of romance cracked open. This was the beginning of a total fascination with the black masked hero that has continued on into adulthood. I've seen every one of the Zorro movies ever made - a total geek. This one is special for so many reasons - Alain Delon is the most manly of the Zorros to ever wear the mask, particular care and love was given to showing the cleverness of Zorro rather than just simple sword play and gnashing of teeth, and the focus is on Zorro's work for justice rather than just getting the girl. I still thrill to see this movie and become the heart-thumping 12 year old each time the first images roll across the screen! To me, Alain Delon is still one of the most beautiful men God made. The DVD has some issues - apparently the original film didn't survive intact and some of the scenes are either cut short or totally cut out. Enough of the original remains, however, for it to still be fun. Stanley Baker gets my vote for Best Zorro Bad Guy next to Ron Liebman in "Zorro the Gay Blade"! (although, much more serious:)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Alain Delon is excellent as Zorro, great fight scenes, fun!
Review: Alain Delon is excellent as Zorro! The film has great fight scenes with a dash of wackyness and fun music. This is my favorite version because it's good, yet amusing. I still love the Fairbanks and Powers versions, however Delon just does it for me! (It is available widescrene!)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Classic Zorro- a very entertaining, enjoyable movie-
Review: All of us probably have the greatest affinity for the first characterization we saw of our favorite heroes, whether it is Superman, Sherlock Holmes, or Zorro. Alain Delon was the first Zorro I saw, so all others fall WAY short in my opinion. Saw this movie on TV as a kid in 1976 and became obsessed with Zorro for a long time. Years later, when I saw it on Amazon on VHS I bought it immediately with a shout of glee!

The movie itself has a certain rough-cut, but magical charm. Dont expect a well polished, big budget film. This is a spagetti-western (low budget, made in Italy), with the same gritty feel as Clint Eastwood's "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly." The theme/score is a folksy, uplifting song that you will never forget- because it seems to be the only song they play, except for the villian music/dirge. SOme don't like it; I think it adds to the charm of the film.

Great family movie! I watched it with my kids and they laughed for days at the mild camp and gag-lines! Lots of good clean humor, great sets and costumes, and some of the BEST SWORDFIGHTING on film. No love scenes...just love interest/romance. Three on-screen deaths but no blood or gore. NO PROFANITY! What a novel idea...!

The story departs artistically from the typical Don Diego in California. In this version, Diego clandestinely assumes the identity of his assassinated friend, the incoming Governor of Nuevo Aragon(?) which is either a fictitious province of early 19th century Mexico or South America. He cleverly deals with the villian (and heroine) in both roles, as a wimpy, weak ruler and also as the daring masked rider. Children cheer as he appears, dealing out justice to corrupt officials and leaving his trademark "Z" majestically with a whip or sword. The film suggests that "Zorro is back", and hints that perhaps a previous governor was an earlier Zorro some years ago, and the downtrodden villagers are jubilant to see Zorro return.

All of Zorro's appearances are spectacular, and his escapes are humorous and amazing, from bouncing on multiple awnings onto his horse, to rolling down a ramp in a wine barrel toppling soldiers on his way. Unmatched stunts and swordplay.

Quirky and fun. A must see for true Zorro fans. Just realize going in that your favorite Zorro will probably always be the one you saw first. Alain Delon is still my favorite.



Rating: 5 stars
Summary: No Other Zorro Need Apply
Review: Banderas and Hopkins should have taken notes from Alain Delon and Stanley Baker! Unequivocally the greatest dual committed to film. Alain Delon and Stanley Baker are perfectly cast in this European version that makes all American versions look like a cheap costume party. Fantastic sets, wonderful costumes, the audience member is transported back in time. While far from the plot of Johnston McCulley's 1919 novel, this 1975 version does retain the spirit of his original character. What I don't like is that this version has been mercilessly edited of some key scenes. I would like to encourage all fans of this film to lobby for it's FULL restoration to two hours.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Greatest Collection For Classic Movies
Review: Best of all movies i ever watched. Watched three times but not ever enough. Alain Delon's seamless performance as cavalier was unforgettable and inspiring.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Zorro
Review: First of all, it is unfair to review a vhs or dvd which was cut

1/4 from its original. If anybody see this movie from the big

screen, then he/she will knew how good it is. I saw the MOVIE

about 20 times. I truly believe that there is no better Zorro

than Alain Delon's!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Perfect art.
Review: Garcia, the fat fool, is led by the nose, weighed in the balance and found wanting. He's on his knees in the corral with his rump upreared, but Zorro spares him for the moment, mercifully. He turns his attention to the other soldiers, mere toys in his hands. They pursue him past a row of olive-oil tuns, the camera feints right like a magician's other hand, then cuts back to a farther vantage as they are doused. Zorro climbs to a balcony (a nice appreciation of Douglas Fairbanks) to fence with a couple of fellows, whose swords are caught in a door he opens, suddenly. He closes it and swiftly locks them in. The battle continues on and on, until the two burst their way out and fly over the balcony like tummelers. It's a three-ring circus, and when it ends, Garcia is down on his knees again, presenting an irresistible target. Zorro cuts his majuscule into that rotund bottom, and away.

Richard Lester labored in the clay of The Three Musketeers before he discovered the perfect art of The Four Musketeers, but there it is. It helps to be a genius, and what is that but recognizing the possibilities of the material?

The ladies in church are bathed in tongues of fire, in the midst of which is Zorro, answered by a child's laughing face.

His foppish alter ego is naturally built on the Scarlet Pimpernel, with a flash of inspiration drawing on The Great Race (Jack Lemmon as Professor Fate and the Prince). As such, Alain Delon arises from the throne at a formal gathering, takes a few steps forward with a fairy grace and trips over something all the way down to the red carpet, face-first---and springs up again, laughing.

Rich costumes fill the palace Tessari films in, with a great eye for the angular impression that gives life to the scene.

The advantages of the Italian school are these: a soldier doing a spit take at the sight of Zorro has the serene outward manner of a piece of fountain statuary; the one-second gag can become your forte, even if it involves a dozen actors and a barrack-room full of props; you can set up leisurely variations on the Harry James bugle gag in Private Buckaroo.

Rolling barrels down a slope against your victim, that's a gag varied here by making it a narrow curved corridor deep in the palace. The soldiers climb it, Zorro rolls out the barrels, they topple, he climbs into a large one and barrels past them all.

Tessari's impressionism is best seen in a plein-air pursuit on horseback, with rapid cuts, a one-second dolly shot à la Olivier, every freshness available in the variation of angles and approaches, brought to a perfectly cogent end.

He understands from Welles the value of Griffith's editing. Battle affray is smeared across a few comprehensive shots, clear or blurred, and there's Zorro's mastiff having a pee in a medium long shot, then loping off with a lolling tongue.

Stanley Baker plays a figure who is Zorro's only equal, at first more comical the more serious he tries to be, and then in the final swordfight a worthy opponent, at least in appearance. This long sequence is fought so bravely and filmed so well that when Zorro seems to have been vanquished with a stupendous gag (swung on a rope crashing through the rose window of the chapel) you honestly have to cheer his vanquisher for a moment. Ah, but "Zorro's back," as the truly delightful song has it, and the dramatic conclusion has all the savor of the Saturday sagas.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: I HOPE THIS ONE ISN'T CUT TOO!! BUT PROBABLY IS!
Review: I DON'T HAVE THIS ONE,WHAT I HAVE IS THE ONE FROM THE COMPANY CALLED (LEISURE ENTERTAINMENT/IDEAL/DIGITAL GOLD COLLECTION.)THIS VERSION IS BADLY CUT!!I WOULD LIKE TO SEE A FULL VERSION OF THIS MOVIE TO,I'D SPEND MORE IF IT CALLED FOR IT-JUST TO GET THE FULL-VERSION ON DVD NOT VHS.THE COVER I HAVE IS THE ROSE & SWORD,ON THE DVD IS LEISURE ENTERTAINMENT.THE WORD ZORRO ISN'T EVEN ON THE BINDER-COVER.MOST I'VE SEEN, RUN 88-90 MIN. EITHER VHS OR DVD.I'M WAITING FOR 120-MIN.LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE ZORRO MOVIE'S,I LIKE THE ACTOR'S.FULL VER=5*


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