From Amazon.com
Most sequels pale beside the originals. However, this follow-up to Douglas Fairbanks's surprise 1920 hit,
The Mark of Zorro, is a welcome exception. Though again mining the Old California Robin Hood idea, it's better produced, it's better scripted, and it features the still-agile 42-year-old Fairbanks in not two, but three roles--playing Don Diego/Zorro as well as his own foppish son, Don Cesar de Vega. The big change here: Don Cesar's weapon of choice is the whip rather than the rapier. You can think of him as a forebear of the bullwhip-cracking Indiana Jones.
The setting shifts to Spain, where Don Cesar is falsely accused of murder. Tyranny's head again rears as our hero romances a very young Mary Astor and battles the series's most formidable foe yet, Donald Crisp's Don Sebastian.
With a more reasonable budget, Fairbanks was able to stage the fights and cliffhanger escapes that were beyond him the first time around. That's Warner Oland, the best of the Charlie Chans, as Archduke Paul and Jean Hersholt of Greed as Don Fabrique Borusta. --Glenn Lovell
On the DVD
Two films on one dual-layer DVD
Rare home movies of Fairbanks at work and play
Fairbanks vs. Jack Dempsey
Introduction to the "Mark of Zorro" by Orson Welles
Clips from other Fairbanks pictures
Excerpt from Fairbank's 1918 book "Making Life Worthwhile"
