Wednesday, November 18, 2015

MOOM PITCHER REVIEW! ZORRO AND THE THREE MUSKETEERS starring Gordon Scott (Italy 1963)

Not since BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA have I seen such a mind-curdling coming together as this 'un!

Call me a retard (I know you have), but for all these years I thought that Zorro was a fellow who dressed in black, wore a mask and operated in 19th century California! I guess I and Guy Williams were wrong all along, for it turns out that the masked one was operating in 17th century Spain, and not only that but at one time he actually fought side-by-side with the legendary Three Musketeers during one of those wars that always seemed to crop up over some minor infraction or piece of land! Sheesh, all of this makes me wonder what else I saw on tee-vee back in them days that was nothin' but a pack of hooey, like mebbee the castaways on GILLIGAN'S ISLAND couldn't have survived the way they did all those years and that some janitor at THE DAILY PLANET would surely have seen Clark Kent sneak into that same closet over and over and come bouncing out as Superman!

I'd like to say that this team up worthy of a seventies Marvel Comics title (with Spiderman taking the place of Zorro natch) was a fun way to spend a weekend afternoon but frankly it wasn't. In fact I thought this was one of those films that even Brad Kohler would have had a hard time sitting through and that ain't only because of the bean casserole he just ate! Seventeenth-century intrigue and swashbuckling action (though by the way these guys are dressed maybe they shoulda called it swishbuckling!) never did appeal that much to me the way those old Martin and Lewis films that were popping up on weekend tee-vee sure did, and after all these years all I can say is that I haven't changed my mind regarding these furrin' adventure mooms one bit!

This has been touted as being a serio-comedy, only the fun parts seem lost in the translation with the rather unfunny jokes flying by you even worse than they did on SEINFELD. Y'know, like they're supposed to be funny but they aren't, but laugh anyway or people will think you're a cube. Even I'M DICKENS HE'S FENSTER could get some gag-worthy humor out amid the at-times stiff scripts, but ZORRO AND THE THREE MUSKETEERS just blobs on an on to the point where I didn't even bother stopping the disque to take one of my semi-hourly pee-breaks.

One little bitta dialogue here did perk my ears up, and that was the part where a soldier mentioned that in order to get to sleep he ate a lot of potato chips which made him drink a lot more wine to wash away the salt which evidently made him soused and sleepy! Besides the convoluted gag used to make what was passing as a joke (I wonder what the original joke was pre-translation) one can only wonder about the historical accuracy of potato chips in early 1600's France! I'm surprised someone didn't also mention downing a six-pack of Dr. Pepper instead of wine which woulda made the early-sixties connection to the pimplefarms this was aimed at a whole lot more to-the-point! Ya gotta go for the heart of the audience ya know!!!!

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