The Mark of Zorro (1940)

The Banderas/Zeta-Jones version is pretty good fun for modern sensibilities and the silent version with Douglas Fairbanks is positively groovy, but for me this is the definitive Zorro film.  It does have the advantage of starring the absolutely gorgeous Tyrone Power; his looks began to coarsen later and he died ridiculously young, but in the thirties there was none more beautiful.  He is pretty enough to play the fop as a scarlet pimpernel type when not donning the mask to avenge local evils with his sword.  This is a sumptuous production with a lush score and even a super duel with Hollywood's best swordsman, Basil Rathbone -- although perhaps not as great a fight as his with Errol Flynn in "The Adventures of Robin Hood".  Linda Darnell looks lovely here as Zorro's love interest -- her looks also altered later on.  And we have the wonderful Eugene Palette (last mentioned on these pages in "The Ghost Goes West") as a fat and rebellious priest.  What a blissful way to spend the afternoon.