The Coolidge Corner Theatre

Live Musical Accompaniment by Marty Marks

Douglas Fairbanks stars in this silent classic that has influenced generations of swashbucklers. In THE MARK OF ZORRO, his first full-blown effort at the costume thriller, Fairbanks portrays Don Diego Vega, a comically effete young nobleman with a taste for tasseled sombreros and juvenile silk-hanky magic tricks. But when danger calls, Diego swathes himself in black, straps on a well-honed sword and storms the countryside as the mysterious Zorro, slicing his initial into the faces of the "sentinels of oppression," pausing only to boldly romance the woman (Marguerite De La Motte) to whom his shy alter-ego can hardly summon the courage to speak.

1h40m, screens from DVD