The Mark of Zorro is a 1940 American black-and-white swashbuckling Western film from 20th Century Fox, directed by Rouben Mamoulian, produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, and starring Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, and Basil Rathbone. The supporting cast features Eugene Pallette, Gale Sondergaard, and Robert Lowery (the second actor to portray Batman on film). The Mark of Zorro was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score. The film was named to the National Film Registry in 2009 by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant", and to be preserved for all time. The film is based on the novel The Curse of Capistrano by Johnston McCulley, originally published in 1919 in five serialized installments in All-Story Weekly, which introduced the masked hero Zorro; the story is set in Southern California during the early 19th century. After the enormous success of the silent 1920 film adaptation, the novel was republished under that name by Grosset & Dunlap. Plot Don Diego Vega is urgently called home by his father. To all outward appearances, he is the foppish son of wealthy ranchero, the former alcalde Don Alejandro Vega, having returned to Alta California after his military education in Spain. Don Diego is horrified at the way the common people are now mistreated by the corrupt Alcalde, Luis Quintero, who had forced his father from that position of leadership. Don Diego quickly adopts the guise of El Zorro ("The Fox"), a masked outlaw dressed entirely in black, who becomes the defender of the common people and a champion for justice against the uncaring Quintero and his garrison of soldiers. In the meantime, he romances the alcalde's beautiful and innocent niece, Lolita, whom he grows to love. As part of his plan, Don Diego simultaneously flirts with the alcalde's wife Inez, filling her head with tales of Madrid fashion and culture while raising her desire to move to Spain with her corrupt husband, Luis. In both his guises, Don Diego must always contend with the governor's most capable henchman, the malevolent and deadly Captain Esteban Pasquale. When the current situation comes to a head, he eventually dispatches the captain during a fast-moving rapier duel-to-the-death, as the alcalde looks on in astonishment. This action leads to a forced regime change with the help of the people of Los Angeles, the other landowners, and his father. This became Don Diego's long-range plan