Don Ricardo Returns

Producers Releasing Corporation made this very unintentionally humorous "Zorro" ripoff, supposedly based on a story by Johnston McCulley, author of Zorro. If McCulley did write the story he evidently never met a real Mexican let alone a Spaniard. The dialog in this, is spoken by a mostly non Latino cast in typical stilted Americano Spanglish. Every fifth or sixth word is an "authentic" word. The acting, if it can be called that, veers from wildly florid to nonsensical hilarity. The actress playing Dorothea, says her lines like she learned them while working the pickup window at her local Jack In the Box. The main nasty guy, Anthony Warde, screams every line like a commandant of a Nazi death camp. And, Fred Coby, who? is about as authentic a Spanish land owner as PRC could get. Yeah, sure. "Address me as Don Recardo, Dog Swine!" I wonder just what kind of animal that could possibly be? Perhaps, the ultimate question this thing asks might be, if Don Ricardo did indeed return, where did he go to begin with?

When this originally played on the bottom of a double bill many years ago, it is doubtful many in the audience paid much attention to it. Today,only insomniacs, reviewers in training and/or lovers of mindless drivel would watch. As Anthony Warde intoned in so heartfelt a manner, "Be gone, vermin!"