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Fred Niblo, Douglas Fairbanks Pictures, United Artists, 1920, from Johnston McCulley’s The Curse of Capistrano. Fairbanks is Don Diego Vega, a fop in California under a bad governor, and Zorro when he leaves the house. Marguerite De La Motte is Lolita; Noah Beery the sergeant. Working title The Curse of Capistrano. AFI notes a San Fernando Valley set standing in for Los Angeles about 1840, and that Harry Uttenhoven, a fencing champion, was hired to school Beery and Robert McKim. Fairbanks wrote as Elton Thomas. The Z is a signature, not a thesis.
In two programmes
Fairbanks turns from comedy to swords in one picture. The scale here is a body: a fop indoors, a vault over the wall outside. A fencing champion was hired to school the villains so the hero would have someone to beat.
Spanish California, not the Anglo frontier, and the same DNA: a masked rider, a corrupt governor, a populace to save. Fairbanks vaults, fences, and runs across roofs. Watch the land in the ride to the mission. Then watch the man. The genre found out it could be fun.
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