SEAN FLYNN’S “DUEL AT THE RIO GRANDE”(“IL SEGNO DI ZORRO”) 50TH ANNIVERSARY

Back in 1961 when Sean Leslie Flynn embarked on his cinematic career, he joked that after he did “The Son of Captain Blood” he would do the “son of Zorro”. Not quite, but the producer of “TSOCB”, Harry Joe Brown  did sign Sean up to do “Il Segno di Zorro” (translation: “The Sign of Zorro”). In this film (which had its initial European release in 1963) Sean got to display his athletic skills and prowess at fencing and horsemanship and he did a better acting job here than in his freshman outing. In my article, “The Forgotten Films of Sean Flynn” I stated (at least in my opinion) that Sean seemed to be channeling Errol and his performance was enjoyable to watch. As a matter of fact some of his dueling scenes could rival similar scenes in Errol’s “The Prince and the Pauper”.   The film was popular throughout Europe and was released in most countries as a Zorro film. But because of copyright issues (Disney had released a film titled, “The Sign of Zorro” in the US in 1960), any reference to Zorro was excised from the English language print. (There weren’t many, as the film only used the Zorro motif as a symbol (using “the sign of Zorro”)  and the character isn’t even called Zorro throughout its run.) Thus the film under the title, “Duel at the Rio Grande” was released in 1964 in Great Britain on a double bill with a remake of Maria Montez’s film “The Siren of Atlantis”. (This time under the title of “The Lost Kingdom”).  The film received little (if any) theatrical release in the US due to the copyright issue and was sold to television syndication in 1968 where it played in some markets as time filler in the afternoon and late nights before disappearing. When the video boom of the eighties took off, the film was released on home video in Finland, where it was released with Finnish subtitles. As edited, “Duel at the Rio Grande” is almost a completely different film from “Il Segno di Zorro”. “Duel at the Rio Grande” like most of Sean’s films is not available in the US on legitimate home video. (Il Segno di Zorro” has been released in German, French and Spanish.) You can catch it on YouTube as “The Sign of Zorro” and judge for yourself.–A. R.

[Sean’s costume in the movie remarkably resembles the cover illustration from the 1958 paperback edition of the “Mark of Zorro”. (see below)

— ILIKEFLYNN