The U.S. government has taken control of California and Gov. Parker (Mario Feliciani) makes it clear anyone attacking U.S. troops will be dealt with harshly.
Apparently, the same rule doesn’t apply to a gringo gunfighter who mistakenly guns down a young senorita during a dispute with her boyfriend.
The man who does that happens to be an ally of the governor, and the governor is in cahoots with Judge Clemens in a scheme that could rob native Californians of their land.
They decide the gunman is guilty of misuse of a firearm. The penalty: a $99 fine or 30 days in jail.
Watching the trial, Leonora Acevedo (Maria Luz Galicia) is outraged. So is Beatrice de Echague. And they can’t understand why Cesar de Echague (Fernando Casanova), Beatrice’s brother and Leonora’s wannabe husband, doesn’t feel the same.
What they don’t know is that Cesar is secretly The Coyota, a masked avenger dressed in black and riding at night to right wrongs done to Californians.
When he avenges the young girl’s death, he’s working along. The next time he foils one of Gov. Parker’s schemes, he has three gunmen backing him up.
So the governor decides he needs to lure The Coyote into a trap before he’s rallied all the residents around against the new Yankee government.
Maria Luz Galicia as Leonora Acevedo, alarmed by the lack of courtroom justice with Cesar Leon de Echague (Fernando Casanova) by her side in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Maria Luz Galicia as Leonora Acevedo gets another visit from The Coyote (Fernando Casanova) in The SIgn of the Coyote (1963)
Review:
The best of the three Coyote films from the period, this one features the direction of Mario Caiano and a score by renown composer Francisco De Masi.
And if the stars of the piece aren’t household names to Spaghetti fans, many of the supporting cast members are, including Piero Lulli, Raf Baldasarre, Jose Jaspe and Fernando Sancho.
This Coyote is a bit different from the one director Joaquin Luis Romero Marchent introduced us to in 1955’s “The Coyote” and its 1956 companion piece “Judgment of the Coyote.”
In this film, our hero doesn’t always work alone. And while The Coyote’s identity is unknown to Cesar de Echague’s family and the woman he loves, he has some faithful assistants, namely Julian and Lupita, two servants int he de Echague household.
Of course, anyone who’s ever seen a Zorro film will recognize the inspiration for the Coyote character. This film even features a rousing sword fight in the final showdown between our hero and the dastardly governor.
Mario Feliciani as Gov. Parker, coming up with another plan against the Californians in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Arturo Dominici as Judge Clemens, working in cahoots with Gov. Parker against the Californians in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Directed by:
Mario Caiano
Cast:
Fernando Casanova … Cesar Leon de Echague, The Coyote
Maria Luz Galicia … Leonora / Mary Acevedo
Mario Feliciani … Gov. Parker
Giulia Rubini … Beatrice de Echague
Arturo Dominici … Judge Clemens
Piero Lulli … Lenny
Nadia Marlowa … Lupita (maid)
Raf Baldassarre … One Ear
Giuseppe Frisaldi … Hernando Lugones
as Joe Camel
Miguel del Castillo … Julian
Giuseppe Fortis …. Wilkes
Jose Jaspe … Lugones brother
Jose Marco … Capt. Gray
Fernando Sancho … Lugones
Felix Fernandez … Don Guoyo
Andrea Scotti … Don Guoyo’s son
Jesus Tordesillas … Senior Diego de Echague
Paola Barbara … Senora Teodora Acevedo
Fernando Hilbeck … Joaquin Gaillado
Santiago Rivero … Doctor Valdez
Runtime: 80 min.
aka:
Il segno del coyote
El vangador de California
Il vendicatore di California
Music: Francisco De Masi
Jose Marco as Captain Gray, an officer who winds up wounded and under the care of the de Echague family in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Nadia Marlowa as Lupita, Giulia Rubini as Beatrice de Echague and Maruja Tamayo as her mother in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Memorable lines:
Sorry, I watched a Spanish language version of this film.
Piero Lulli as Lenny, a gunman cleared of murder after shooting a woman in the back in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Fernando Sancho as one of the men who help the Coyote in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Trivia:
* This film marked one of the first Western scores by Francisco De Masi, who went on to score dozens of Spaghetti Westerns.
* This film and “The Mark of Zorro,” released the same year, were the first Westerns by Mario Caiano. His other Westerns include “A Train for Durango” (1968) and “Shanghai Joe” (1973).
* Maria Luz Galicia started her acting career as a dancer and appeared in three Euro Westerns. The other two were Zorro films. According to the Westerns All’Italiana blog, she retired from acting after a small role in 1963’s “Cleopatra” and became a painter. Her grandfather had been a famous painter in Spain.
* A retired bullfighter, Fernando Casanova entered acting in the mid-1940s and wound up appearing in nearly 200 films through 2007. He died in 2012 at age 96. This film and “Four Bullets for Joe” marked his only Euro Westerns.
Fernando Casanova as Cesar Leon de Echague, considering a coward by the woman he loves because she doesn’t know his secret in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Mario Feliciani as Gov. Parker, finding himself as a disadvantage for a change in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Fernando Hilbeck as Joaquin Gaillado, the Californian seemingly destined for a hangman’s noose in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Arturo Dominici as Judge Clemens, looking over the Acevedo land grant as Julian, Cesar’s servant (Miguel del Castillo), looks on in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
Paola Barbara as Senora Teodora Acevedo and her daughter Leonora (Maria Luz Galicia), in danger of losing their land or worse in Sign of the Coyote (1963)
){kind=link}