Trinity Sees Red

There is a certain expressiveness that is linked to groups of people, ethnicities, community struggles. I would impress this point upon the prospective viewer of the dubbed English version of this film: an undertaking to capture the moment of civil unrest in the black community, only instead of speaking in the authentic manner or the black community, each actor's lines are overdubbed with proper Scottish dialect complete with accent. That's what it was like to watch this film in the English dub, and unfortunately subtitles were not available. As a western, this film is a cheap imitation of "A Fistful of Dollars", itself an imitation of "Yojimbo". But whereas those films have a whimsical undertone engulfing the nobody from nowhere with no cares, this film was undertaken from a more serious perspective of building a heroic narrative around the collapse of the padrone system. Ironic since the lead here would soon gain cult-like status for his slapstick fists and fazouli routines with Bud Spencer. And in the attempt to capitalize on that notoriety, this film would be marketed as an "Trinity" adventure, which it certainly is not. It is a tragedy. The final scene is an attempt to reproduce the poignant final moment of Dr.Zhivago. Why not? The substance of the film is the rise of democratic socialism in Italy as the Padrone was challenged, no less momentous to Italians than the rise of Marxism in Russia would be to students of the ante-bellum Russian writers. But it would take 6 years for the subject of the Italian social upheaval to receive an epic cinematic treatment with none other than Vito Andolini (Robert Dinero) anchoring the cast in "1900". But yet the kernels of an emotional tale of divided loyalties, personal struggles, and the ethics of organized society are evidenced in this film. Too bad they cannot be heard as well due to the crummy English overdubs which put Hong-Kong-Phoey martial arts movies to shame.