The Bold Caballero (1936)

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Robert Livingston (Don Diego), Heather Angel (Lady Isabella Palma), Sig Rumann (commandante), Ian Wolfe (priest), Robert Warwick (Governor Palma), Emily Fitzroy (duenna), Charles Stevens (Vargas), Ferdinand Munier (innkeeper), Walter Long (Chato), Chris-Pin Martin (tax collector), Soledad Jiminez (peasant woman), Carlos De Valdez (mayor), Chief Thundercloud (Zorro's aide), Artie Ortego, Gurdial Singh, Louise Carter, Iron Eyes Cody, Chris Willow Bird, Chief John Big Tree (Indians), Andres Blando, Juan Medina (bullfighters), Yakima Canutt (soldier/peon), Joe Dominguez (guard), William Emile (dueler), Al Haskell, I. Stanford Jolley, Jack Kirk, Henry Morris, Pascale Perry, George Plues, Vinegar Roan, Charles Slim Whitaker (soldiers), John Merton, Jack Roberts (sergeants), Nellie Walker (stunt double for Heather Angel), Joe Yrigoyen (stunt double).Director: WELLS ROOT. Screenplay: Wells Root. Based on an idea and characters created by Johnston McCulley. Photography in Magnacolor by Alvin Wyckoff and Jack Marta. Supervising film editor: Murray Seldeen. Film editor: Lester Orlebeck. Costumes designed by Eloise. Music supervisor: Harry Grey. Music settings: Carl Hajos. Sound recording engineer: Harry Jones. Associate producer: Albert E. Levoy. Producer: Nat Levine.Copyright 4 January 1937 by Republic Pictures Corp. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 3 February 1937. 8 reels. 69 minutes.U.K. release title: The Bold Cavalier.Australian release title: Zorro: The Bold Caballero.SYNOPSIS: Spanish Californian peasants find a champion in Diego, a fop by day, Zorro by night.COMMENT: Republic's first color film is by no means simply a curiosity. Nor is it merely an entertaining precursor of "The Mark of Zorro" (1940). It still comes across in this year of grace as an enjoyable romp in its own right. True, you can hardly compare Robert Livingston with Tyrone Power, Heather Angel with Linda Darnell, Sig Rumann with J. Edward Bromberg, Chris-Pin Martin with Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard with Emily Fitzroy, and Ian Wolfe with Eugene Palette. Nonetheless, within the limits of a lesser budget and less expansive script, Livingston and company do the familiar story proud. Yak Canutt doubtless doubled the masked Zorro, as well as handling the frolicsome 2nd unit action. William Emile likewise served a double duty as fencing coach and technical adviser. Certainly, in less than 70 minutes, the movie packs in enough dueling and hair's-breadth escapes for the fans, plus a bit of comedy and maybe just a mite too much of romance. Plus all that, this version has the advantage of a couple of songs from Zorro!

Robert Livingston stars in what is probably the first color Zorro film and a film that predates the release of the classic Tyrone Powers film. The film begins with Zorro captured but still masked being lead into the village square when word reached the evil commandante of the garrison that Spain has sent a new governor. In the confusion Zorro escapes and the military is once more on the prowl for the masked avenger. One of the lesser Zorro films, its clear this was made to show off the Magnacolor process and be a spectacle of some sort (There are a couple of songs, but no big numbers). There's lost of romance and flashy costumes but the action adventure seems to be skimped on. Its good but not great and certainly not what one thinks of as a Zorro film , especially from Republic Studios who turned out over half a dozen Zorro and Zorro related serials. Worth a look as a rental and if you run across it on cable, but unless you need to see every Zorro movie ever made you don't need to go out of your way to see it.

Enjoyable. Creaks, shows it age. Primitive in many ways, but nice bantering and humor between Livingston, the girl and the evil commandant. Sometimes I found the dialogue and acting stilted and silly, other times quite amusing................This film should interest Zorro fans for comparisons with other versions of the story -- here the girl plays a major role (her father is killed early in the story, and she inherits his position as governor of the province), Zorro's father/family are not even mentioned, and it is the Indians who are oppressed (in other versions I think it was the Hispanic peasants and others being oppressed).

Well received in it's time and holds up well today. Plot and dialog are notable, and the Heather Angel character is powerful decades before feminism. Skip Banderas. Watch this one.