Zorro Rides Again
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Movie Reviews of Zorro Rides Again
Movie Review: Great Zorro movie
Summary: 5 Stars
Great Zorro movie!!! I've been impressed by the misture of old-western style with new technologies...using trains, aeroplanes...etc...
John Carroll did a great performance!!!
Movie Review: Bold as his Blade! Wild as his Whip!
Summary: 4 Stars
That was the tag line for the movie posters, although there's not a sword in sight in this movie. This was the first of the many Zorro-type serials, and the first collaboration of William Witney and John English, the consensus all-time-best serial directors. It's not quite as good as "Zorro's Fighting Legion" or "Zorro's Black Whip" (which wasn't about Zorro at all), but still worthwhile. This Zorro is James Vega, the great-grandson of the original Zorro called by his uncle to help the railroad of which he is part owner. No one knows his identity except his faithful companion Renaldo, played as an old man by Duncan Renaldo.
John Carroll was a handsome young actor whom Witney and English hated to work with because of his supersize ego. He had run away from home at the age of 12, later drove race cars in Europe, and worked as a stunt man in the early 30's. MGM considered him a potential rival to Clark Gable, but that never quite worked out. No matter, wise investments in land and the shrimping industry left him a wealthy man when he retired from films in the late 1950's. The tension between him and Whitney/English doesn't show up on screen, however; Carroll does a very good job, especially when he's pretending to be a fop.
Probably the best acting in this film comes from Noah Beery, Sr. With his magnificent basso profundo speaking voice he's the archtypical Western villain. Richard Alexander (Prince Barin in "Flash Gordon" and the mute henchman in "SOS Coast Guard") is also quite good as Beery's go-to bad guy El Lobo. Helen Christian plays a co-owner of the railroad who is disgusted with James Vega because he apparently never stands up for them. Of course, at the very end, after being appalled by him throughout the whole picture, they are about to get together. This apparently was the only movie Helen Christian ever made--she married RKO short-subject producer and retired. Yakima Canutt did all the stunt work so you know it was good.
There's one obvious cheat in this one, which is not typical of Witney/English serials. At the end of Chapter 10 Zorro loses his balance on the edge of a tall building, topples backward, and falls straight down. In the next chapter he was merely jumping from one building to another when he slips, catches onto a ledge, uses his whip to swing to the next window, and escapes.