The Mark of Zorro | |
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Directed by | Rouben Mamoulian |
Produced by | Darryl F. Zanuck |
Screenplay by | John Taintor Foote |
Story by |
Garrett Fort Bess Meredyth |
Based on |
The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley |
Starring |
Tyrone Power Linda Darnell Basil Rathbone |
Music by | Alfred Newman |
Cinematography | Arthur C. Miller |
Edited by | Robert Bischoff |
Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
Release date
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Running time
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94 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English Spanish |
Budget | $1 million |
Box office | $2 million (rentals) |
The Mark of Zorro is a 1940 American black-and-white swashbuckling adventure film from 20th Century Fox, produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, that stars Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, and Basil Rathbone.
The Mark of Zorro was nominated for an Academy Award for Best original score. It was named to the National Film Registry in 2009 by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant", and to be preserved for all time.
The film is based on The Curse of Capistrano written by Johnston McCulley, originally published in 1919 in five serialized installments in All-Story Weekly., which introduced the masked hero Zorro; the story is set in Southern California during the early 19th century. After the enormous success of the silent 1920 film adaptation, The Mark of Zorro, the story was republished under that name by Grosset & Dunlap.
Don Diego Vega (Tyrone Power) is urgently called home by his father. To all outward appearances, he is the foppish son of wealthy ranchero and former Alcade Don Alejandro Vega (Montagu Love), having returned to California after his military education in Spain.