Talk:The Mark of Zorro (1940 film)
A fact from The Mark of Zorro (1940 film) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 21 October 2004. The text of the entry was as follows:
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The duel
The article stated: The film features a climactic duel between Zorro and Pasquale. Rathbone was known already in Hollywood as an outstanding classical
There are several issues. One is the lack of citations - some of which are marked - and the appearance of weasel words. Factual accuracy is another. According to other sources, Basil Rathbone was past hs prime, and ahooting the duel scene put Power in danger. The assumption that actors are good at real fencing, as opposed to stage fencing - an exercise in making a fight look good on screen -, is also strange. -- Zz (talk) 09:31, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
Music used in The Adventures of Don Juan (1948)
Most of the music in Errol Flynn’s The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) including the dominant theme, is taken directly from Alfred Newman’s Academy Award nominated score for The Mark of Zorro (1940). This is not subtle. Just play the opening of the earlier film on YouTube, or better yet, watch a proper copy online. I discovered this tonight (November 2019) watching Don Juan on TCM.
I have been wondering how Max Steiner got away with it, although Newman was famous for his collegiality, and may have said sure, why not. In 1948, TV had not yet invaded the nation’s living rooms. WOR’s “Million Dollar Movie” (1955-1966) and similar programs were years away, much less cable TV and AMC and TCM and home video. The chances anyone would notice were slim, and if someone did, who would they have told? I was much more surprised to find modern comments praising Steiner’s score online from people whom I would expect to know both films.
IMDB says that the score for Zorro the Gay Blade is an adaptation of Steiner’s score for Don Juan. Since Gay Blade was conceived as a silly sequel to the 1940 film, it seems much more likely that that was the inspiration for the music. Perhaps the ever-dreaded issue of rights played into this. Perhaps they were only able to get permission from the borrowers instead of the originators or their “ heirs and assigns”. It may have been a rights loophole that made Steiner’s “borrowing’ possible, Inquiring minds want to know. Merry medievalist (talk) 10:41, 19 November 2019 (UTC)