They Call Me Trinity (1970)

(This post is part of the Foreign Western Blogathon hosted by Moon Over Gemini)

When people think of Spaghetti Westerns, such grim, ultraviolent movies with morally ambiguous protagonists as A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and Sabata (1969) most likely come to mind. While it is most definitely a Spaghetti Western, about the only thing They Call Me Trinity has in common with those movies are a morally ambiguous protagonist. Quite simply, They Call Me Trinity, or in its native Italian Lo chiamavano Trinità (literally "They call me Trinity") is a Spaghetti Western comedy.

They Call Me Trinity centres on the character of the title (Terence Hill), a gunfighter with preternatural skill with guns wandering the Old West. While Trinity is an excellent gunslinger and quite good at hand to hand combat, he also happens to be exceedingly lazy, so lazy that he has a litter attached to his horse on which he takes naps while his horse takes them to wherever he wants to go. Trinity finds himself in a small Western town where his brother Bambino (Bud Spencer) just happens to be impersonating the local sheriff while he waits for his gang, just escaped from prison, to arrive. Bambino is not particularly happy to see Trinity, as one of Trinity's few talents is causing trouble. As it turns out, Trinity is taken with a pair of young, single women from the local Mormon settlement. This puts him into conflict with the corrupt Major Harriman (Farley Granger), who wants to drive the Mormons from their land so he can use it for pasture for his horses. Trinity and Bambino then must form an uneasy alliance despite their differences.

For much of the Sixties, Spaghetti Westerns had proven to be very successful. The genre reached its peak in 1968 when fully one-third of all films produced in Italy were Spaghetti Westerns. The bottom would fall out of the genre by 1969, when Spaghetti Westerns comprised only one tenth of all films produced in Italy. It was perhaps for that reason that producer Italo Zingarelli asked director Enzo Barboni to write a script for a Western comedy. Given the time, Mr. Zingarelli was probably wise in doing so. In the Sixties such Western comedies produced by Hollywood as McLintock! (1963), Cat Ballou (1965), and Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) had seen success. As to director Enzo Barboni, he had already directed a serious Western, The Unholy Four (1970).

Originally Peter Martell and George Eastman were to be cast as the leads in They Call Me Trinity. It was director Enzo Barboni who cast Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. The two first appeared on screen together in the movie Hannibal (1959), but not as a team. It was the Spaghetti Western God Forgives...I Don't (1967) that established Terence Hill and Bud Spencer as a team. While God Forgives...I Don't! is a serious Spaghetti Western, it has its comic moments, particularly in scenes in which Terence Hill and Bud Spencer were together. God Forgives...I Don't would prove so successful that Terence Hill and Bud Spencer would reprise their characters in Ace High (1968) and Boot Hill (1969). As in the case of God Forgives...But I Don't!, both Ace High and Boot Hill were serious films, but with a bit of comedy thrown in for good measure.  Incredibly, both Terence Hill and Bud Spencer would perform their own stunts in They Call Me Trinity, with stuntmen mostly performing the stunts for the supporting cast.

While it is a comedy, one thing that They Call Me Trinity has in common with other Spaghetti Westerns is that it was shot in Europe. In the case of They Call Me Trinity, it was shot in Italy. Interiors and towns were shot at Incir De Paolis Studios in Rome. Campo Imperatore in Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park served as the Mormons' field that the Major wanted. Other locations were shot around Lazio, the province in which Rome is located.

They Call Me Trinity proved to be a hit upon its release in Italy. In fact, it was so successful that as of 2004 it was the 22nd most successful Italian film, right below fellow Spaghetti Western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). They Call Me Trinity also did well elsewhere in the world, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

The success of They Call Me Trinity would lead to a sequel, Trinity is Still My Name (1971), which proved to be even more successful than They Call Me Trinity. Its success would also lead to several more films teaming Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, from Blackie the Pirate (1971) to Troublemakers (1994). As might be expected given the nature of Italian cinema, several derivative films were released in the wake of They Call Me Trinity, including They Call Me Hallalujah (1971), Two Sons of Trinity (1972), Cambonia! (1974), and yet others. The success of They Call Me Trinity also led to a boom in Spaghetti Western comedies that would last until Spaghetti Westerns faded from view in the mid to late Seventies.

Sadly, They Call Me Trinity has been blamed for the many inferior Spaghetti Western comedies that followed, with some even maintaining that They Call Me Trinity marked the beginning of the end for the Spaghetti Western. While They Call Me Trinity certainly did inspire a number of inferior imitators, it did so because it is a very funny movie. Indeed, Howard Thompson wrote in The New York Times "Whoever E. B. Clucher (director Enzo Barbonis's pseudonym.--Terence) is—and he is credited as writer-director of yesterday's new movie, "They Call Me Trinity"—he has a sense of humour."  They Call Me Trinity is primarily a slapstick comedy, with the emphasis on physical gags. In some respects it is not unlike an extended Laurel and Hardy short set in the Old West, given a few tropes from Spaghetti Westerns, and shot in Italy. Because of this it translates well around much of the world. Languages may vary from country to country, but physical humour remains mostly the same. It must also be pointed out that Terence Hill and Bud Spencer are perfect in their roles. At any rate, to blame They Call Me Trinity for the many inferior Spaghetti Western comedies that followed it would be something like blaming Star Wars (1977) for the many bad sci-fi movies that followed in its wake.

In the end, whether They Call Me Trinity led to the demise of the Spaghetti Western is perhaps moot. It remains one of the funniest Western comedies shot anywhere in the world.