Zorro

From its delightfully cheesy theme song to its clever casting of French superstar Alain Delon as the titular swashbuckling outlaw, this playful 1975 Italian rendition of Zorro is simply a fun watch. A French-Italian co-production dubbed in English, Zorro brings just the right amount of humor to the classic tale of Spanish nobleman Don Diego de la Vega (Delon), who masquerades as the new governor of Nuova Aragon—a Latin American territory ruled with an iron fist by the wicked Col. Huerta, a murderous tyrant robustly played by Welsh actor Stanley Baker. Aided by a monk named Brother Francisco (Giampiero Albertini) and the beautiful aristocrat Hortensia (Ottavia Piccolo), Don Diego creates his black-masked alter ego, a dashing defender of the downtrodden who uses his sword to slash his signature “Z” wherever he goes. Proceeding to make sword-fodder out of Huerta's soldiers, Zorro inexorably moves toward the big showdown. Along the way, prolific screenwriter-turned-director Duccio Tessari deftly mixes the action and humor, with a lot of laughs delivered by a black Great Dane who steals every scene he's in (and is better than the redundant pratfalls by the bumbling Sgt. Garcia, played by veteran French comedy actor Moustache). Nicely remastered for DVD and Blu-ray, extras include restoration demos, a photo gallery, and text bios. Recommended. (J. Shannon)