Thursday, March 30, 2006

Mark your calendars, Zorro fans

The second annual totally unofficial Suitable For Mixed Company Zorro Fest will be Tuesday, April 18, marking the 49th anniversary of Guy Williams' screen test for the part of Zorro. (See Suitable For Mixed Company: Zorro - A history of the series.)

It's a celebrate-how-you-like festival. I'll be watching a Zorro movie or two, I suspect, at the very least. At last report, Disney had not seen fit to release the 1950s television series on DVD except in France (encoded for Region 2 DVD players), so I'll be watching either Tyrone Power or Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas, most likely. They're not Guy Williams, but they do have their merits. Definitely.

Note to parents: If I were you, I'd preview the Banderas movies instead of just plunking down as a family to watch. I haven't seen the latest one, The Legend of Zorro, but The Mask of Zorro was a curious mix of admirable restraint overlying some rather serious bad stuff, including a beheading (artfully done, but still...), and the beheading wasn't the worst of it, in my opinion. Overall I'd call it a good movie, but it leans toward the early James Bond movies -- those with Sean Connery or Roger Moore -- in violence and our-hero-interacting-with-the-leading-lady stuff (not to mention the leading lady's necklines, etc.). It's cleaner than most of today's prime time television, in other words, but isn't quite Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music, either. I might also note it's got perhaps the best car horse chase ever, or at least the most innovative. ;)

Next year is the 50th anniversary of the Williams screen test. Perhaps I should be thinking about a costume party? Fencing lessons? A street fair? A parade? :-)

(I'm joking. But it would be fun to do something.)

Other Zorro fans, weigh in, please. Will you be doing anything?

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