The Mark of the Renegade (1951)

(On Cable TV, June 2021) You can approach The Mark of the Renegade in a few different ways. Factually, it’s an early 1950s MGM western adventure set in Mexico, featuring Ricardo Montalban and Cyd Charisse. There are obvious Zorro similarities in the setup of a Mexican adventure featuring a lone adventurer fighting a local lord and romancing a luscious heroine — and we’re blessed by history that a dashing young Montalban plays him. (The similarities are not just me pulling out “um, Mexican adventure… Zorro!” out of a hat, considering that the film is based on a novel by Johnston McCulley, who created Zorro.)  As a Charisse fan, I’ll note that the film is one of the last of her pre-stardom days and the third I’ve seen in which this German-ethnic actress played a Mexican character. The two other films (Sombrero and Fiesta) also played on a similar register, purporting to bring some Mexican content to Hollywood but often perpetuating stereotypes. I would like to be a bit more enthusiastic about the swashbuckling adventure aspect of the film, but there’s not much here that’s overly memorable on that front. It’s more perfunctory than anything else, with the notable exception of a dance number between Montalban and Charisse — those two were dynamite together and The Mark of the Renegade is one of their hottest pairings. (I have seldom envied another man more than when seeing Montalban’s suave dance moves with Charisse and Ann Miller in 1948’s The Dancing Bandit, but I’m digressing.)  In other words — I’m happy that The Mark of the Renegade exists and it certainly has its strength, but it could have been much, much more memorable and it just isn’t. That’s really too bad: it’s watchable, but you may not remember much of it the next day.