MARIO GAUCI
Disposable Italian-made adventure of the popular swashbuckling hero which actually plays like a Spaghetti Western (these were all the rage at the time) – not, in itself, a bad thing but the treatment is strictly uninspired! For what it's worth, bland (and blonde) leading man Giorgio Ardisson had already played the character in THE MASQUED CONQUEROR aka ZORRO AT THE Spanish COURT (1962); the heroine, then, is played by Femi Benussi (though she's given very little to do) and the villain by Giacomo Rossi-Stuart.The tone is typically light-hearted – but the comic relief supplied by Sergeant Gomez (this must have looked at the Disney TV series for inspiration rather than the 1940 Hollywood classic!) and a couple of peones, one of whom is perennially coming up with crackpot idioms to make a point, who always seem to get in the way somehow! For once, rather than have the common people rise up against the tyrants, here it's the noblemen targeted by the ambitious Rossi-Stuart and the Alcalde of a neighboring town, who join Zorro in the good cause; with this in mind, the climax is O.K. as a multitude of Zorros appear on the scene to confuse the villains. If anything, the swordfights throughout are handled with reasonable energy…though it all ends on an extremely silly note – with Zorro's pet carrier pigeon promising us further exploits of the Californian avenger (which, needless to say, never came to pass, at least in this company)!
