In The mark of Zorro, his first full-blown effort at the costume thriller, Fairbanks portrays Don Diego Vega, a comically effete young nobleman with a taste for tasseled sombreros and juvenile silk-hanky magic tricks.

The beast within: Little Squirrel, an innocent Indian boy, becomes a menace to the town when he plays with magic and turns himself into a hideous beast. Zorro must find a way to administer an antidote to the beast before a ruthless trapper captures it. The enforcer: When Capt. Montecero hires a prosthetically enhanced bounty hunter to bring in his archenemy, Zorro finds himself facing an opponent whose body is also his weapon. Zorro's only hope is...

The elder Zorro comes out of retirement to train a new Zorro to fight the enemy Montero.