The Mark of Zorro is a 1974 television film and also a backdoor pilot for a TV series which ABC-TV

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 declined to pick up. It was a remake of the 1940 film version of the story

The Mark of Zorro (1940 film)

The Mark of Zorro is a 1940 American adventure film directed by Rouben Mamoulian and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck for 20th Century Fox. The action movie stars Tyrone Power as Don Diego Vega , Linda Darnell as his love interest, and Basil Rathbone as the villain...

, with a teleplay based on John Taintor Foote's 1940 screenplay, and Alfred Newman

Alfred Newman

Alfred Newman was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of music for films.In a career which spanned over forty years, Newman composed music for over two hundred films. He was one of the most respected film score composers of his time, and is today regarded as one of the greatest...

's 1940 score with incidental music composed by Dominic Frontiere

Dominic Frontiere

Dominic Frontiere is an American composer, arranger, and jazz accordionist. He is known for composing the theme and much of the music for the first season of the television series The Outer Limits.-Early years:...

.

Plot

In the 1840s, the foppish Don Diego de la Vega returns from Spain to his family in California to find that his father has been replaced as ruler of the area by the a cruel ruler Don Luis Quintero. Despite being a skilled swordsman, Diego downplays his skills in front of the evil Captain Esteban and shows himself to be a bit of a clown in front of his family. However, Diego secretly picks up the sword of justice as Zorro and fights to return justice to the region and his people.

Main cast

Actor	Role
Frank Langella Frank Langella -Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...	Don Diego de la Vega (Zorro Zorro Zorro is a fictional character created in 1919 by New York-based pulp writer Johnston McCulley. The character has been featured in numerous books, films, television series, and other media.... )
Ricardo Montalbán Ricardo Montalbán Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, KSG was a Mexican radio, television, theatre and film actor. He had a career spanning six decades and many notable roles...	Captain Esteban
Gilbert Roland Gilbert Roland Gilbert Roland was a Mexican-born American film actor.He was born Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and originally intended to become a bullfighter like his father. When the family moved to the United States, however, he became interested in acting when he was...	Don Alejandro de la Vega
Yvonne De Carlo Yvonne De Carlo Yvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced ; Anna in Criss Cross ; Sephora the...	Isabella Vega
Louise Sorel	Inez Quintero
Robert Middleton Robert Middleton Robert Middleton, born Samuel G. Messer , was an American film and television actor known for his large size and beetle-like brow. With a deep, booming voice, Middleton trained for a musical career at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...	Don Luis Quintero
Anne Archer Anne Archer Anne Archer is an American actress who has performed in feature films, television, and stage and was named Miss Golden Globe in 1971. Among her best known roles is that of Beth Gallagher in the 1987 movie Fatal Attraction, for which she received a nomination for an Academy Award.-Career:Archer's...	Teresa
Jay Hammer Jay Hammer Jay Hammer is an American actor best known for his long run as Fletcher Reade on CBS Daytime's Guiding Light from March 1984 until March 1998. He returned briefly in the Spring of 1999...	Antonio