Zorro (1975)
Directed by Duccio Tessari

Film Review

After a meteoric rise to stardom in the early 1960s, Alain Delon continued to be a major box office draw in France in the 1970s, so who better to incarnate that most enduring of screen heroes, Zorro?  Delon had been hankering after the role, or one like it, since he had demonstrated his prowess as an action hero in an earlier swashbuckler, Christian-Jaque's hugely popular La Tulipe noire (1964).  Ten years older, but still seemingly just as lithe and energetic, the actor was over the moon when the role of Zorro landed in his lap in a lavish Franco-Spanish production directed by Duccio Tessari.

One of the most prolific directors in the spaghetti western genre, Tessari brought a bold visual flair to his films, and whilst few of them can be described as works of art, many enjoyed considerable success in their day and a few stand up reasonably well today.  Tessari and Delon had already worked together successfully on another film - Tony Arzenta (Big Guns) (1973), a hard-edged thriller that was both acclaimed and condemned for its brutally realistic violence.

Tessari's penchant for directing well-paced action movies is evident throughout the film, and, with Delon looking so good in the lead role, it is not hard to see why this remains one of the more popular, of the Zorro films.  It is a sumptuously photographed production, replete with masterly choreographed action set-pieces and plenty of human interest.  The tongue-in-cheek comic excursions provide some light relief from the melee of intrigue and violence, although some actors (notably Stanley Baker) take this a little too far and end up looking like stock pantomime characters.

Delon was rarely at his best when playing action heroes (he is more naturally suited to introspective parts, such as that of the lone killer in Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï (1967)), but here he appears to be in his element, striking just the right balance between iron-willed machismo and amiable folk hero - and it helps that the actor doesn't take himself too seriously.  Zorro may not be a highlight in Alain Delon's career, and it is not without some obvious shortcomings, but it still makes a highly entertaining full-throttle romp, one that the whole family can enjoy.

Film Synopsis

Don Diego de la Vega is a young man who has set his heart on returning to Spain after a sojourn in the New World.  Before his departure, he renews his acquaintance with an old friend, Miguel de la Serna, who is about to step into the shoes of his recently deceased uncle and become the new governor of Nueva Aragón.  Don Diego is dumbstruck when, a short while later, he witnesses his old friend's death at the hand of hired thugs in the pay of the ruthlessly ambitious Colonel Huerta.

Realising what kind of man Huerta is - a merciless sadist intent on ruling the state with an iron fist - Don Diego dedicates himself to thwarting him in his wicked ambitions.  Adopting the guise of the folk hero Zorro, a masked swordsman dressed from head to foot in black, he takes on the colonel in a personal crusade to protect the poor folk he is so keen to tyrannise.  In a desperate bid to free several people that Colonel Huerta has unjustly imprisoned, Don Diego has no choice other than to stage his own abduction...