The Mark of Zorro (1974)

Having taken a leaf from David Niven's "Sir Percy" book ("The Elusive Pimpernel" - 1950), "Don Diego" (Frank Langella) travels from the court in Madrid to his father's home in California only to find unwelcome change is afoot. Dad "Don Alejandro" (Gilbert Roland) is no longer the local governor and has been replaced by the nasty "Don Luis" (Robert Middleton) who is propped up by the scheming "Capt. Esteban" (Rocardo Montalban) and who are together reigning terror down on the local population. They quickly dismiss the foppish "Diego" as no threat to their ambitions and indeed even try to arrange a marriage for him, but what chance their plans can succeed when the mysterious, black-caped, "Zorro" simultaneously appears on the scene to fight for the underdogs? Accompanied by a mischievous score but not really enough nimble swordplay, this semi-comedic enterprise sort of lollops along without really making any impact at all. Indeed, were it still the practice to condense the old twelve parters into a single round-up feature, then this could easily have been one of those assemble efforts with fades inserted between it's abridged episodes. Langella hasn't a jot of charisma here and Montalban really just hams up his "Esteban" as we head to the inevitable but seriously undercooked conclusion and I did wonder why - given there can't have been much of a budget - anyone bothered to remake something that Tyrone Power had carved his "Z" on so definitively in 1940. It's harmless fun, but you'll never remember it.