Of Super-Heroes, Arabian Nights, and Super-Stardom

Professor Tom Sito SPEAKS:

"... In 1919, Johnson McCulley, a Los Angeles man who made a living writing adventure stories for pulp magazines, took the bio of Murietta, and wrote a story of a rebellious ranchero, borrowing also from The Scarlet Pimpernel.

"He named him Don Diego De La Vega, who rode at night as El Zorro, the fox.

"This day, 'The Curse of Capistrano', the first story of Zorro appeared in All Story Weekly magazine." ...

Douglas Fairbanks (Sr.), who had specialized in portraying breezy, athletic, all-American go-getters in short comedy features for the previous five years, purchased "The Curse of Capistrano" and turned it into a low-budget action feature -- with comic overtones -- titled "The Mark of Zorro".

For Fairbanks, the picture was just a nice change of pace in a thriving film career. One action-swashbuckler, then it's back to Keatonesque, modern-dress comedies. (Through the back half of the teens, he'd made 5-10 of those per YEAR.)

But "TMOZ" made SO much money, it changed Doug's professional trajectory. Out went low-budget comedies, speedily made. In went big-budget action films. The following year he made an elaborate adaptation of "The Three Musketeers"; the year after that it was "Douglas Fairbanks In Robin Hood" (actual title, I kid you not). He stopped making a half dozen movies per year and commenced making just one.

But a BIG one.

And then, he produced one of the most sweeping, breath-takingly expensive and artistically ambitious films of the silent era: "The Thief of Baghdad." (You want to suss out where Disney's "Aladdin" comes from, "Thief" is one good place to start looking.)

"Thief" was a high-ticket attraction across the nation and played in first-run theaters for months. It took in a considerable amount of money. But its costs were so high it did not make much in the way of profits.

So Fairbanks retrenched. He went back to his swashbuckling beginnings and produced a sequel to "The Mark of Zorro". The new one was called "Don Q., Son of Zorro" and was a bit less expensive than "The Thief of Baghdad". It was directed by Donald Crisp, a man remembered today (when he's remembered at all) as the kindly father or grand-father in scads of sound films (and the winner of an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in "How Green Way My Valley). "Don Q." turned out to be Douglas Fairbanks's second most profitable film.

As for "Curse of Capistrano", it had a life far beyond the Fairbanks pictures. There were sound reboots, there were television series, there were multi-part movie serials.

Most important of all, here in the 21st century, there are super heroes, lots and lots of super heroes. And all the caped crusaders, from Superman and Batman to the hundreds that have come after, have a direct linkage to the original caped righter of wrongs, Senor Zorro.

If you want to know what a 99-year-old action film SHOULD look like, watch a few minutes of the offering up top. Or below, what an Arabian nights fantasy (with a gargantuan budget) could be a mere four years later. ...