Anachronistic Zorro

[kengr]

I recently came across a pair of *very* anachronistic Zorro movies. both are on youtube.

The first, which I haven't watched yet is Zorro and the 3 Musketeers (1963). I looked at the beginning, and it explicitly states that it's in the 1600s.

The second is a Republic serial Zorro's Black Whip (1941). It's set in the late 1800s (main plot is about peopling trying to keep Idaho from becoming a state). Technically it's not a Zorro movie. But they have the outfit and use a whip a lot.

It also has a few other not quite anachronisms. Such as there being a few telephones (the really old wall mount sort with cranks). After a bit I realized that there seemed to be only two. One at the newspaper office and the other at the ranch of the newspaper publisher. Though there's a bit near the end when the bad guys are using them, and it doesn't quite seem right for the plot.

But with only two phones that *does* explain why there isn't an operator. But it doesn't explain why nobody ever tries to cut the phone wires!

Given that Zorro lived in Spanish California in the late 1700s/early 1800s you might be able to explain the outfit as having been passed along to a new family.

This doesn't help at all with the 3 Musketeers one though. well over a century too early.

Ah well, it's all fictional.

Comments

[skjam]

If I recall correctly, the female lead in "Black Whip" is supposed to be one of Zorro's descendants.

[kengr]

Well, if it was mentioned on screen I missed it.

[skjam]

The only one out of five Zorro serials to have OG Zorro in it was "Zorro's Fighting Legion", which also has a nifty theme song. The others were all descendants of Zorro or impersonators.

[stickmaker]

When I was a kid in southeastern Kentucky one of the few TV channels we got would show the old Republic serials on Saturday mornings. All the Zoros, all the Flash Gordons, all the Rocketmans.

I eventually purchased the Flash Gordon (and both Flesh Gordon movies) and all but one of the Rocketman serials on DVD.

Fun times. I am spending a huge amount of my retirement time recreating my childhood. ;-)

[kengr]

As I've mentioned before, one of the afternoon kids programs ran the SF type Serials. So I grew up on Radar Men From the Moon, Zombies From the Stratosphere and the like.

[stickmaker]

My first exposure to Zorro (oops; misspelled it above, though DreamWidth didn't flag it) was the Disney version as aired on the _Disneyland_ anthology series, starting in 1960. (I was too young to remember it during the original airing.)

Ah, Guy Williams. Plus several other brilliant cast members. (Is it just me, or do Penn and Teller remind folks of Disney regulars Henry Calvin and Gene Sheldon?)

Is anyone else familiar with that version? Were there any anachronisms in it?

[kengr]

I saw that version on the Mickey Mouse Club.

[stickmaker]

My original thought was that I saw it on the MMC, but it first showed on there when I was just two or three years old. Did they show it again, later? Or was the MMC in reruns in the middle Sixties?

Can't remember clearly and too lazy/busy just now to look it up. I do know I loved to watch the variously-named versions of the Disney show on Sundays, which among many other programs showed compilations of the Zorro episodes.

I need to upgrade to a better brain. :-(

[warriorsavant]

Pish tosh about anachronisms. Next you'll be claiming that cave men and dinosaurs weren't contemporaries.

[kengr]

Humans and dinosaurs still *are* contemporaries. I've got frozen dinosaur (chicken) in my freezer. :-)

[warriorsavant]

I understand the technical thought that chickens are dinosaurs, but I still think that anything I can eat, rather than can eat me, doesn’t qualify.

As long we are on the subject of anachronistic and being off by millions of years, T. rex lived closer in time to us, than it did to Stegosaurus.

[stickmaker]

You've seen the movies, now drink the coffee: Jurassic Perk.

[stickmaker]

Great. Now I want fried chicken. :-)