One of those lost pilots, as part of Terry's Forsaken Westerns series, is a little gem from filmmaker Ken Murray that should've found a home on television, but didn't.
El Coyote can be construed as a sort of knockoff of Zorro, but for the fact that there'd already been a serial more than a decade earlier that posited a female Zorro. "Zorro's Black Whip", with Linda Stirling, later turned up on PBS' Matinee at The Bijou, back in the 80's, and served as the inspiration for Murray to create his own version.
Olympic gymnast Muriel Davis, in her acting debut (and only notable role), is Jane Edwards, the daughter of a retired Army colonel (George Brent), now a newspaper publisher fighting a corrupt land baron (Paul Richards). Concerned that the people of the pueblo will be forced out, Jane, with encouragement from Manuel, the blacksmith (Billy Gilbert), dons the mask of El Coyote.
Anyone not think that this might've been on the minds of folks at DC Comics and 20th Century Fox a decade later when Yvonne Craig was cast as Batgirl? Judge for yourselves, pilgrims.
Murray drew inspiration not only from Zorro, but Batman as well, not to mention the Rube Goldberg-esque gymnastic stunts performed by Davis, who'd go on to win a gold medal as a member of Team USA at the 1963 Pan-Am Games. Bear in mind that Disney's adaptation of Zorro was on the air at the time, and that may explain why El Coyote was given the el snubbo by the networks. Their loss.
Rating: A+.
2 comments:
I definitely agree that it was Disney's Zorro show that prevented it from going to series. I can understand the reasoning since that show was still running (and a hit!) and having a female version of a similar character could seem redundant. Plus there was probably a risk of a lawsuit.
The timing was wrong.
I used to watch the Black Whip on Matinee at the Bijou too, and it was ok.
A lawsuit probably would have killed Ken Murray's career dead, I'd guess. Had he waited, say, 2-3 years after Zorro signed off, maybe this has a chance.
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