By far, the best duel scene I have ever seen in any movie, and I've seen a lot of them.

My qualifications to judge? I started fencing at the age of fourteen, having overdosed on Errol Flynn movies and novels by Rafael Sabatini (Captain Blood, Scaramouche, Master-at-Arms, a total of around seventy novels altogether, some made into Hollywood swashbucklers), took lessons from several teachers, including one U. S. Olympic Team coach, and a year's lessons from a former student of Aldo Nadi. I have a nice collection of trophies and medals.

It's my understanding that Tyrone Power's mother was Senior Ladies' Fencing Champion of Ohio; she taught him to fence when he was a kid, and he went on to fence competitively. Basil Rathbone was also a competitive fencer and he was reputed to be the best fencer in Hollywood. One of his big jobs was to make Errol Flynn look good in movies like Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Flynn was all flash and dash, with no real fencing technique (someone once described him as "swash from the neck up and buckling from the knees down!").

It is also my understanding that fight director Fred Cavens was slated to direct the duel scene in the alcalde's study in The Mark of Zorro. But Power and Rathbone politely escorted him to the door and worked out the choreography of the duel between themselves, then practiced the moves together very slowly, so that each knew exactly what the other was going to do. They were doing some damned dangerous stuff in that duel scene, so they needed to have it all carefully worked out before they brought it up to speed. They were using light-weight regulation competitive fencing sabers, and although the cutting-edge is only theoretical, one of those slender blades across the face can leave one helluva welt!

The only clankers in the scene were that the action was taking place in the early 1800s in California, and the weapons, as I said, were modern competitive fencing sabers (I have two of them, bought from a fencing equipment catalog), much lighter than the bloody-great curved cavalry sabers they would have been using back then.

And the technique that Rathbone, in particular, was using was the modern Hungarian-Italian school of saber fencing that was developed by Italo Santelli, who wasn't born until 1866.

Anachronisms notwithstanding, it's a great duel scene!!

Don Firth