My introduction to the Trinity movies was in North Dakota, at an old-fashioned drive-in movie. My best friend and I bought a pony keg and set up for an all-nighter in the last row. I remember stretching out on the hood of his car, leaned back against the windshield, and watching these amazingly funny spaghetti westerns back to back to back to back. I have no idea how many movies played that night, but damn, it was good times. A while back I found a trio of Trinity movies together in a boxed set and snapped it up.

I'm not mad at you. I'm mad at our Ma. She shoulda strangled you, or at least drowned ya when you were born.

The Trinity series revolves around the adventures of two brothers. The younger is Trinity, and he has a knack for getting into trouble. His older brother is Bambino (*snicker*), who is a huge grouchy bear of a man. Neither are particularly honest, and when problems arise (as they always do) each is able to deal with it using their wits, fists, and speed with a gun. These movies aren't westerns with funny parts, these are comedies that are set in the old west.

In They Call Me Trinity, Trinity rides into a town, only to discover that his brother Bambino is the sheriff. We quickly learn that the two brothers don't much care for each other, and then find out that Bambino isn't the real sheriff. He'd ambushed the real sheriff, stole his badge and left him for dead. Now he's biding his time, waiting for his gang to show up after getting out of jail and planning a big job to steal horses.

Bambino is a pretty good sheriff too, despite his grumpiness. His standard greeting to the townspeople's cheery "Howdy, sheriff!" is "Shut up." He keeps the town reasonably calm and safe without unduly cramping the style of most of the less law-abiding residents.

Without giving away too much, I'll mention that the real sheriff plays a prominent role later on, as do a bunch of Mormon farmers, the crooked Mayor of the town, and some Mexican banditos. Oh, and Mormon daughters. Very lovely Mormon daughters.

Each brother has his own reasons for getting involved, and it's not from the goodness of their hearts. The ending becomes a giant slapstick fistfight involving practically everyone in the movie, a highlight being the beating bestowed upon the bandito leader Mezcal by Bambino. Who suspected that Mormons could fight like that?

They Call Me Trinity gets a hearty "shut up" from Rocket Jones, and the first sequel, Trinity Is Still My Name, is almost as good. There are more in the series of varying quality. I also highly recommend the similarly titled My Name Is Nobody, starring Terence Hill and Henry Fonda. Classic western comedy.

About the actors:
The two main characters, Trinity and Bambino, are played by a pair of Italian actors who took the English names Terence Hill and Bud Spencer. Individually successful, their careers really took off when they teamed up. These two co-starred in 19 movies in all, mostly action-adventure flicks.

Besides acting, Terence Hill has been a writer, director and producer for movies both in Europe and America. His mother was German, and during WWII his family lived in Dresden, where they survived the WWII bombings. Currently, he and his long-time wife live in New England.

Bud Spencer (Bambino) has worked as writer, director, producer, plus he has composed movie scores for television, films and children's features. He was educated as a lawyer, is a licensed jet and helicopter pilot, and represented Italy as a swimmer in the 1952, 1956 and 1960 Olympics.

Posted by: Ted at 12:15 PM | category: Cult Flicks
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