Customer Reviews

Zorro's Fighting Legion - The Complete Serial

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

ALPHA VIDEO offers bargain priced, often hard-to-find vintage movies that are ideal for those willing to skip DVD extras. Their transfers show no evidence of restoration, so quality varies from one title to the next, with "fair to good" being the average.

.
Incidental music and the simple two verse theme of ZORRO'S FIGHTING LEGION are by Bill Lava. He scored over 500 features, shorts, cartoons and TV series. Lava wrote theme songs for F TROOP and Disney's SWAMP FOX and ZORRO, scored 80 ZORRO episodes, every F TROOP show, 22 CHEYENNEs and 67 BONANZAs. His variations of two basic "Fighting Legion" strains used throughout the serial include some effective accelerating tempi.

Six-foot-four-inch Texan Reed Hadley was radio's first Red Ryder and the star of TV's RACKET SQUAD and PUBLIC DEFENDER. Classic comedy fans remember his cameo in W.C. Fields' THE BANK DIÇK (1940), as very tall French actor Francois who's impossibly teamed with tiny Miss Plupp (Heather Wilde).

Hadley is handsome and great in action scenes, especially the many swordfights required here. His foppish Don Diego, arrayed in lace and frills and speaking in girly outbursts, is an intentional contrast to Zorro's manly black outfit and mask. This, to keep others from guessing the Don's crimefighting alter-ego.

.
In REPUBLIC's "Fighting Legion," he and his men battle Don Del Oro, an enemy hidden beneath an outlandish metallic disguise, who uses loyal Yaqui Indians in his quest to destroy the Mexican Republic and become that country's ruler. Every plot Del Oro puts into motion is foiled by Zorro and eventually we learn the villain's actual identity.

My sole criticism of this well-done cliffhanger is one of munitions. It's 1824, yet in battle scenes riflemen never stop to ramrod charges and projectiles into their weapons, also twin-barreled pistoles seem to have more than two shots in them. The sustained volleys fired by galloping horsemen are impossible without frequent reloading.

OK, it's only a movie serial and as such, ZORRO'S FIGHTING LEGION is an excellent one. Very much recommended.

.
Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 IMDb viewer poll rating.

(7.5) Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939) - Reed Hadley/Sheila Darcy/William Corson/Leander De Cordova/Edmund Cobb/John Merton/C. Montague Shaw/ Budd Buster/Carleton Young/Joe Molina (uncredited: Yakima Canutt/Clayton Moore/Jason Robards Sr./Billy Bletcher as Don Del Oro's voice)

During the 30's and 40's Republic Pictures made several serials and one color feature film featureing pulp hero Zorro or some other variant on the hero. "Zorro's Fighting Legion" was Republic's second Zorro serial following the excellent modern day (the 1930's)set "Zorro Rides Again" and is the best of the lot. This is the only serial that is set in the right time period and features the real Zorro - Don Deigo Vega. All the rest "... Rides Again", "Son of Zorro", "Ghost of Zorro" starring Clayton "The Lone Ranger Moore" while on strike from TV series and "Zorro's Black Whip" which doesn't feature Zorro himself but a masked female hero the Black Whip were American westerns.

Zorro's Fighting Legion has Don Degio traveling to the newly established Republic of Mexico to aide his uncle in helping protect gold shipments to the new government's treasury. Sadly, said uncle is murdered in the first chapter and Zorro arrives just in time to take out the murder. The villian of the story is one of Republic's best masked villians the gold armoured Don Del Lobo. Don Del Lobo pretends to be a Yaki Indian god and stirs up the natives into attacking the gold shipments. Deigo takes his uncle's place on the governing council and soon begins to suspect that one of the council members is actually Don Del Lobo.

For 12 exciting chapters Degio/Zorro and his Fighting Legion battle the forces of Don Del Lobo until the villian is unmasked in the final chapter. The funny thing about these unmaskings in Republic serials is that who the villian turned out to be mattered very little by the end of the story. Any of the suspects could have been named the bad guy and no story points would have had to be changed.

"Zorro Fighting Legion" was made before stock footage ruled American serials and is still as exciting as when it was first released. Directed by Republic's best directing team Whitney and English and aided by a top music score and a crack stunt team "... Fighting Legion" is serial making at its best and rarely does the action seem repetative. Reed Headly (The Adventures of Captain Marvel and TV's Racket Squad) makes for an excellent Zorro. His stong voice and commanding physical appearance in the Zorro union suit brings the hero to life better than any actor before him (that including Doug Fairbanks) and not matched until Guy Williams wore the union suit in the Disney TV series. Some have complained that he was a little stiff as Don Deigo but his perfomance as Zorro's alter ego never bothered me.

Zorro's Fighting Legion is one of Republic's finest serial and an excellent example of a lost art form.

NOTE: Following "Ghost of Zorro" Republic made two other serials featureing clones of Zorro "Don Daredevil Rides Again" starring Ken Curtis - Gunsmokes's Festus Hagen and "The Man With The Steel Whip" both featuring tons of stock footage from these earlier Zorro serials.

Thanks, I'm a big Zorro fan, Good to be able to get my zorro movies on DVD, before the VHS goes bad, at a good value.