The Mark of Zorro invented the screen swashbuckler as we know it: Douglas Fairbanks as a foppish nobleman by day and a masked avenger by night, fencing, leaping and smiling through every scene.
The Mark of Zorro (1920), directed by Fred Niblo and based on Johnston McCulley’s story, stars Fairbanks in a double role: Don Diego Vega, a seemingly lazy nobleman in Spanish California, and Zorro, the masked rider who defends the oppressed against a corrupt governor. The film’s dual identity, its swordplay and its secret mark, the Z, became part of popular culture.
Fairbanks’s performance is the film’s engine. As Diego he is languid and comic, as Zorro he is athletic and daring, and the contrast is played for both humour and excitement. His stunts, leaps and fencing, performed with a grin, set a standard for action stars that followed.
It is a signature role because it launched Fairbanks’s great series of costume adventures and created the template for the masked hero in film.