Zorro (1990): Dead Men Tell No Tales

Air Date

Friday January 5, 1990

Production Code

Unknown

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• Stars

  • Henry Darrow Don Alejandro De La Vega (9-14-90)
  • Juan Diego Botto Felipe
  • Patrice Camhi Victoria Escalante
  • Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Don Alejandro de la Vega
  • James Victor Sgt. Jaime Mendoza
  • J.G. Hertzler Alcalde Ignacio De Soto (9-1-91)
  • Michael Tylo Alcalde Luis Ramone
  • Duncan Regehr Don Diego de la Vega/Zorro

• Directors

  • Ray Austin Director

• Writers

  • Maxwell Pitt Story
  • Robert L. McCullough Writer

• Producers

  • Ray Austin Producer
Episode Cast and Crew Details »

• When Zorro tries to escape from the Alcalde’s office he opens the door and two soldiers shoot at him. He closes the door and the shots go into the door about halfway up. Then, when the second soldier comes in shooting there are no holes on the outside of the door!
  This is possibly explained that the door used in the shot, was not the actual Alcalde’s office door. It is common to have another filming team, usually called the “second unit,” to film such expeditionary shots like the bullets hitting the door. [edit]

• This episode is the only episode where the theme song is sung by a man. Also, the opening montage is very different from the montage used for season one. [edit]
• A common, inexpensive way to film night-time scenes was to use a blue filter for the lens and under expose the film.
  

  
  When doing this you want to be careful that the scene is dressed to make it seem as if it were truly night-time. For instance, making sure outdoor lights are turned on, using night-time cricket sounds and making sure there aren't any birds flying by. (It‘s hard to see birds at night!)

  
  Sometimes though, what is captured by the camera is beyond control. In the supposedly night-time scene where Zorro is on the rooftop with a telescope watching Ricardo Cortez leave, you can see two birds flying behind him! Oops! [edit]

• Zorro to Alcalde Luis Ramone: Indeed a sword is no match for a pistol, just as your valor is no match for your mouth.
  Alcalde Luis Ramon: Choose your next witticism with care, for it will be your last. [edit]
• Alcalde Luis Ramone: Those shots were a warning. The pleasure of killing you is all mine.
  Zorro: My sword says differently Senior Alcalde. [edit]
• Ricardo Cortez: A memory like Zorro has a nasty way of turning into a legend. He could be more trouble dead than he was alive. [edit]

• Zorro sticks his cape under the door of the Alcalde's office and pokes the key through the keyhole knocking it onto his cape, which he pulls under the door to him. He then deftly uses the key to unlock the door!
  

  
  This nifty trick was also used in a MacGyver episode that aired in 1985 entitled, "The Gauntlet." Season 1, Episode 4. In the Opening Gambit, MacGyver must escape from a locked room with a top-secret map. He uses the map the same way Zorro used his cape!

  
  Zorro is much the same type of inventive man of science as MacGyver. Here is one instance where the same ingenious trick worked well for both! The only difference is that Mac wanted out of a locked room and Zorro wanted in! [edit]

• Zorro tracks down the actor who plays the part of a man Victoria was supposed to have murdered. As the man tries to defend his actions Zorro stops him saying, “No more words my fine actor, for the rest is silence.” Here Zorro is quite glibly quoting Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act 5: Scene 2 the last words of the Prince of Denmark, Hamlet himself.

  
  HAMLET

  
  O, I die, Horatio;

  
  The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:

  
  I cannot live to hear the news from England;

  
  But I do prophesy the election lights

  
  On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;

  
  So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,

  
  Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

  
  [Dies] [edit]

• Towards the end of the episode, in order to get everyone's attention, Zorro harnesses the sun with a telescope to burn Sergeant Mendoza's pants. Smiling Zorro says, “I burn too--with injustice.”
  

  
  This most likely a parapharse from a verse in the New King James version of the Bible where King Solomon speaks of the injustices he saw in the court room, just as Zorro sees the injustice of the Alcalde hanging Victoria without a trial on circumstantial evidence.
  

  
  Ecclesiastes 3:16 (Injustice Seems to Prevail) Moreover I saw under the sun: In the place of judgment, Wickedness was there; And in the place of righteousness, Iniquity was there.” [edit]