There are many, many bottom-of-the-barrel B-westerns, most of which were produced/directed by either Victor Adamson or Robert J. Horner; the directing, acting, editing, continuity and just about every aspect of film-making is at the lowest level possible, but still, relative speaking, are worth watching once. Hey, let's see anybody else do any better with just $1500-2500, even in the 1930s. And, if any film by either is available, I have it. And make no apologies for that.
Now anything that can be pointed out on any Adamson/Horner film as being somewhat less that stellar film-making can be said about "Call of The Coyote" (actually the Original title frame reads "Call of the Coyote - A Legend of the Golden West") and its companion piece and running mate "The Irish Gringo", when it comes to cheap-jack, poverty row films. But "Coyote" and "Gringo" go beyond being just bad B-westerns. They should have a sub-genre of their own in the exploitation field. A simplified definition of Exploitation films boils down to plain everyday Vice/Doing-it-before-marriage films, a field the likes of J. D. Kendis excelled in, or the Perversion/Depravity films much favored by Dwain Esper. "Coyote" and "Gringo" come real close to being what Esper was good at making. Actually, in some ways both blow Esper out of the tub.
Both involve a little girl (about seven or eight) whose father is killed because he has a hidden gold mine and the killer wants it. The little girl has the map to the mine but doesn't know it. Everybody else knows it but doesn't know where it is. Both involve a trio of good-badmen, and the little girl gets "adopted" or "looked-after" by this trio of good-old-boys. The plot in both is the same (with the same pictures of Arizona's Grand Canyon serving as background) but the child-loving hero in both is played by Pat Carlyle. (The current cast on site incorrectly says otherwise, but it has been corrected and should be up in a few days.) Pat Carlyle, using the worst so-called Mexican accent ever heard in any film in any era, spends most of the running time saying things like..."breeng me the leetle baybee..I want to keese the leetle baybee" or...."breeng me a lock of the leetle baybee's hair so I can keep it and reemeerbar her foreeevar." In both cases, the "leetle baybee" is a young girl about seven or eight years old. In Coyote, she never has a line and is on camera most of the time. She appears shell-shocked. She may have been.
Pat Carlyle (under several names) can usually be found in films of the depraved/perverted ilk and sometimes in the company of Dwain Esper films. Aside from the cast, the majority of the crew--most using nom-de-plumes at various times---are most often found in exploitation films ranging from Esper to Kendis to Ed Wood. In the crew cases, I suspect these cameramen and editors are there because it was the only job in town for them. (I've known several actors and a couple of producers who worked in this field up to and including with Ed Wood, and also at most of the majors as stars or producers, and asked them, at various times, why so many common crew names worked these films for such a long period of time, and were they just cheap hacks. The usual answer was that they were as good as anybody at what they did, but had problems staying sober on a show that took longer than a week to film.) My personal opinion on Pat Carlyle (who apparently took acting lessons from Theodore Lorch and learned nothing), based on the way his eyes lit up when it came his turn to "hold the baybee," wasn't acting. I could be wrong.
Back in the last century, as a U.S. Marine, I made a couple of trips down to Tiajuana (when it was still named Tia Juana), and I never saw anything in Tia Juana that was near as creepy-crawly as "Call of the Coyote" and "The Irish Gringo."
Now anything that can be pointed out on any Adamson/Horner film as being somewhat less that stellar film-making can be said about "Call of The Coyote" (actually the Original title frame reads "Call of the Coyote - A Legend of the Golden West") and its companion piece and running mate "The Irish Gringo", when it comes to cheap-jack, poverty row films. But "Coyote" and "Gringo" go beyond being just bad B-westerns. They should have a sub-genre of their own in the exploitation field. A simplified definition of Exploitation films boils down to plain everyday Vice/Doing-it-before-marriage films, a field the likes of J. D. Kendis excelled in, or the Perversion/Depravity films much favored by Dwain Esper. "Coyote" and "Gringo" come real close to being what Esper was good at making. Actually, in some ways both blow Esper out of the tub.
Both involve a little girl (about seven or eight) whose father is killed because he has a hidden gold mine and the killer wants it. The little girl has the map to the mine but doesn't know it. Everybody else knows it but doesn't know where it is. Both involve a trio of good-badmen, and the little girl gets "adopted" or "looked-after" by this trio of good-old-boys. The plot in both is the same (with the same pictures of Arizona's Grand Canyon serving as background) but the child-loving hero in both is played by Pat Carlyle. (The current cast on site incorrectly says otherwise, but it has been corrected and should be up in a few days.) Pat Carlyle, using the worst so-called Mexican accent ever heard in any film in any era, spends most of the running time saying things like..."breeng me the leetle baybee..I want to keese the leetle baybee" or...."breeng me a lock of the leetle baybee's hair so I can keep it and reemeerbar her foreeevar." In both cases, the "leetle baybee" is a young girl about seven or eight years old. In Coyote, she never has a line and is on camera most of the time. She appears shell-shocked. She may have been.
Pat Carlyle (under several names) can usually be found in films of the depraved/perverted ilk and sometimes in the company of Dwain Esper films. Aside from the cast, the majority of the crew--most using nom-de-plumes at various times---are most often found in exploitation films ranging from Esper to Kendis to Ed Wood. In the crew cases, I suspect these cameramen and editors are there because it was the only job in town for them. (I've known several actors and a couple of producers who worked in this field up to and including with Ed Wood, and also at most of the majors as stars or producers, and asked them, at various times, why so many common crew names worked these films for such a long period of time, and were they just cheap hacks. The usual answer was that they were as good as anybody at what they did, but had problems staying sober on a show that took longer than a week to film.) My personal opinion on Pat Carlyle (who apparently took acting lessons from Theodore Lorch and learned nothing), based on the way his eyes lit up when it came his turn to "hold the baybee," wasn't acting. I could be wrong.
Back in the last century, as a U.S. Marine, I made a couple of trips down to Tiajuana (when it was still named Tia Juana), and I never saw anything in Tia Juana that was near as creepy-crawly as "Call of the Coyote" and "The Irish Gringo."
