Mon 27 Sep 2010
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: DON Q, SON OF ZORRO (1925).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Reviews , Silent films[3] Comments
DON Q, SON OF ZORRO. United Artists, 1925. Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Astor, Jack McDonald, Donald Crisp, Stella De Lanti, Warner Oland, Jean Hersholt. Based on the novel Don Q’s Love Story by Kate Prichard & Hesketh Prichard. Director: Donald Crisp.
Three Bucks at a local Grocery Store sufficed to deliver unto me a genuine Rarity, Don Q, Son of Zorro. The most enjoyable of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s Swashbucklers I’ve seen to date.
I’ve carped before about the dreadful lack of Pace in Doug’s Costume Pictures, a defect that causes the films to drag even in the midst of some of the most flamboyant and fun-to-watch capering ever committed to the Screen. Don Q, however, harks back to the early knockabout comedies that made Fairbanks’ reputation (along with those of Chaplin, Keaton, et. al.) and spends most of its time indulging Doug in that insouciant showing-off he did so well.
Hard to believe this fast-paced souffle was directed by none other than Donald Crisp, Hollywood’s resident Patriarch/Wet Blanket in films from How Green Was My Valley to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Crisp elicits neat performances from Warner (Charlie Chan) Oland as a German Prince, Jean (Dr. Christian) Hersholt as a fawning toady, and does a surprisingly neat turn himself in the Young-Basil-Rathbone style as a lecherous cad.
As for Fairbanks, Crisp manages to indulge him without over-indulging him, and never lets the pace flag for a moment.
No mean feats, those.
Editorial Comment: This film is, of course, a sequel to The Mark of Zorro (1920), also, as everyone knows, with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Out of curiosity, I investigated. The book by the Prichards (a mother and son collaboration) has no connection with Zorro whatsoever.
September 28th, 2010 at 12:24 am
I loved this movie, but I sure wish old Doug had filmed more adventures of Don Q’s dad.
September 28th, 2010 at 12:31 am
Don Q, as Steve points out in his editorial comment, had nothing to do with Zorro other than being a Spanish bandit/grandee in a series of episodic novels by the Prichards. Don Q in the books is bald, has a large skull, dresses in black, and resembles a vulture. You can read or download his adventures in PDF or EPUB format from Google Books including some fine illustrations by noted illustrator H. Wood.
I have a friend who is endlessly amused by the fact Donald Crisp once played Francis Bacon, but Crisp had a long career in silents, usually as a villain, and notably in BROKEN BLOSSOMS taken from Thomas Burke’s LIMEHOUSE NIGHTS stories.
The Republic serial DAUGHTER OF DON Q ignored both Zorro and the Prichard’s and was a contemporary mystery about Spanish Land Grants in California and valuable property. I’m not sure the Prichards were even credited. Charles Quigley starred, I think with Linda Stirling.
Prichard also penned the NOVEMBER JOE detective stories about a half breed tracker/sleuth and penned what was, until John Dickson Carr, the standard biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He also wrote about psychic sleuth Flaxman Low.
I agree to some extent about the pacing of some of Doug’s silent films (ROBIN HOOD does drag a bit), but they are still worth seeing. This one does indeed hold up very well though. THE AMERICANO and THE GAUCHO are both well paced too, and THE IRON MASK with its elegiac nature a fitting close to Doug’s silent swashbuckling.
Hesketh Prichard (sometimes as Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard was also a famed hunter and explorer, who trained the British army in sniping techniques and led famous expeditions to Hati and Patagonia, in the latter discovering the rare giant three toed sloth that was thought to be extinct. He managed all that and still died relatively young, his fiction and non-fiction forgotten today, but highly popular in his day.
September 29th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Dan, your comment about the slow pacing of Fairbanks’ swashbucklers is the same one that Charlie Shibuk made to me more than once about Rex Ingram’s films. He admitted that they were pictorially splendid but his admiration seemed to stop there.
The only one of Fairbanks’ silent features that defies my ability to sit through is “The Thief of Baghdad.” I’ve seen the film on the big screen and on various video incarnations and none of these viewings has captivated me. Of course, my first experience with the story was with the initial release of the Rank version and that’s never fallen out of the list of the top five of my all-time film favorites.