Tony Mastroianni Review Collection

This "Trinity" Is Not Blessed By Our Tony

Cleveland Press December 3, 1971

There are funny westerns and serious westerns but "They Call Me Trinity" will have to be chalked up as simply a silly western.

This is an Italian western that seems to be a spoof of Italian westerns (which in turn are imitations of American westerns.) But it is a spoof that is so inept and so uneven that people will be laughing at it rather than with it.

Who knows? It's so outrageously awful that it might click.

Trinity is a fast man with a gun who wears grimy britches held up by a single suspender over a soiled undershirt.

He does fancy things like outdrawing two men and killing them with his back turned, grinning all the time. When he's not shooting people, he's hitting them very, very hard, and when not doing that he stares with his big blue eyes and grins inanely.

His step-brother is a big Man Mountain Dean-type who is temporarily established as the town sheriff. He's really a crook, but he shot the new sheriff before the real thing ever arrived.

As shady as these two are, they represent the forces of good in a bad town run by a fancy dude played by Farley Granger. If you have any half-way decent memories of Granger skip this picture. He uses a horrible southern accent that is bad enough to start another Civil War.

To add complications but nothing of interest, there also are a gang of Mexican bandits and a group of Mormon settlers. The film gets more ridiculous as it goes along until it just finally grinds to an end.

"They Call Me Trinity" could be the best bad movie of the year.