Zorro's Black Whip
| Zorro's Black Whip | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by |
Spencer Gordon Bennet Wallace Grissel |
| Produced by | Ronald Davidson |
| Written by |
Basil Dickey Jesse Duffy Grant Nelson Joseph Poland Johnston McCulley (Original Zorro Novel) |
| Starring |
Linda Stirling George J. Lewis Lucien Littlefield Francis McDonald |
| Cinematography | Bud Thackery |
| Distributed by | Republic Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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12 chapters (182 minutes) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $134,899 (negative cost: $145,251) |
Zorro's Black Whip is a 1944 Republic Pictures film serial starring Linda Stirling. The film was made after the 1940 20th Century-Fox remake of The Mark of Zorro and Republic wasn't able to use the character himself, but still wanted to capitalize on it. However, and despite the title, Zorro does not feature in this serial. The hero(ine) is actually called The Black Whip throughout.
The serial is set in pre-statehood Idaho, and involves a fight to prevent and ensure statehood by the villains and heroes respectively.
Parts of this serial were reused as to pad out later serials such as Don Daredevil Rides Again (1951) and Man with the Steel Whip (1954) – despite the fact that both of those serials had male leads.
In Zorro's Black Whip the word Zorro never occurs, but a female who behaves like Don Diego in Idaho fights a cabal of corrupt politicians as "The Black Whip" after her brother (the original Black Whip) is killed.
Hammond, owner of the town's stagecoach line and a leading citizen on the council, is secretly opposed to Idaho becoming a state—because government protection would destroy the system and organization he has constructed—and conducts raids against citizens and settlers alike to prevent order, while keeping his own identity as the organization's leader secret. The town marshal is meanwhile powerless to act outside his jurisdiction beyond the town boundary. Randolph Meredith, owner of the town's newspaper, as the Black Whip, opposes this scheme to defeat statehood, but one day he is killed after preventing yet another coup. Meredith's sister Barbara, expert with a bullwhip and pistol, dons Randolph's black costume and mask and becomes "The Black Whip" in her brother's place, dealing a blow to Hammond and his gang each time they perform some heinous act in their efforts to keep the town, and their power over it, unchanged.
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Wikipedia