Enzo Barboni on why no more Westerns.

Enzo Barboni: It has always seemed to me that there's no need to keep going for the gold. It's also risky. So I only did the first two comic Westerns, and then I did something different. I believe in moving on from a genre at the proper moment, even it other then follow and do excellent business. But when Zingarelli and I did the Trinity series, they weren't even making Westerns anymore. Times change, other things come along. Who can believe in a gunslinger on horseback anymore, when a purse-snatcher on his Vespa motor scooter does things Jesse James wouldn't have dared? Your average thief on his motorbike does acrobatics that would make a poor horse's head spin. When I did the second Trinity - there was a gag that a friend wryly responded to: "Well, if a fanatic on horseback can do that, what would I do with 218 horsepower in my engine?"

The motorcycle has definitely replaced the horse.

[Of course, Barboni did make a third Western. After negotiations with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer to make a third Trinity film in 1995 fell through, Barboni made TRINITA & BAMBINO... E ADESSO TOCCA A NOI, aka SONS OF TRINITY. Hill and Spencer made BOTTE DI NATALE, aka THE FIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, aka THE TROUBLEMAKERS, as Travis and Moses.]

Sergio Corbucci on the revival of the Western

Sergio Corbucci: They often ask me to do a Western again, partly because at one time I made two films with Terence Hill, who is the third great Italian Western actor after Giuliano Gemma and Franco Nero. I don't think Westerns, be they Italian or American, can ever make a comeback. All the attempts in this direction in America have failed miserably. Every so often I think to myself: "Hmm, a Western, who knows?" But it's an idea that vanishes as quickly as it occurs to me, because I no longer know what I would make, or how I'd make it: dead serious, a spoof, what? For now, the youth - kids - those who've always been the commercial backbone for this type of film - have discovered science fiction, or Westerns with policemen; yes, those films with cops in the streets of New York where the skyscrapers have taken the placed of the Rocky Mountains. Today, if you walk into a toy store in any town in the world, you can no longer find a Cowboy hat or a Western pistol. Kids couldn't care less: they want space monsters. So, who'd go to see a Western anymore? Maybe only a nostalgic old man...

Enzo Barboni on E.B. Clucher and Hill & Spencer.

Enzo Barboni: Having been a director of photography for so many years, I thought producers might be a bit resistant to seeing me as a director and I changed my name to E.B. Clucher. Clucher was my mother's maiden name, a "lanzquenet" name originally, I believe. I decided this at the very last moment - only Zingarelli and I knew about it. And so when the film was released they all asked who this Clucher was.

It's been a lucky charm for me that I wouldn't part with for the world.

The team of Bud Spencer-Terence Hill had been formed for a film by Giuseppe Colizzi, which had done good commerical business but hadn't taken off like THEY CALL ME TRINITY. Ten years later, they're still together with many successes behind them. They have no problems as a team: one lives in Rome, the other in the States, and they only meet up for the films. I believe Terence Hill is an American citizen by now, he married an American, has two kids, and lives there full time. I think they do one film a year together, and otherwise have separate careers.

There isn't a dominant person in the pair, they complement each other, each with his own individuality, so much so that they've done many films apart, though without the success they enjoy as a team.

Bud Spencer has always stayed close to the conception of the character from the first films, whereas Hill has tried to change his a little. Bud is a bit infantile, completely instinctive, not very intelligent: the other is a bit aggressive, without being nasty. Naughtier. Pedersoli dedicated his life to sports, then he did something in a production capacity and he became acquainted with, and wed, the daughter of Peppino Amato. He's one of those who gives his all; a great fellow. With me, and I think with others, he's very attentive, very respectful of the director's ideas, which I always discuss ahead of time with the actors, and once accepted there are no problems. I try and involve myself with every part of the system: producers, distributors, actors. I prefer to start only when everyone believes in it and is in agreement. If the film goes well, they can share the responsibility, and likewise if it fails - if it doesn't hit the mark.

Enzo Barboni's thinking before THEY CALL ME TRINITY.

Enzo Barboni: As a Director of Photography, I'd done many Westerns, and one thing about them that made me laugh was their use of violence as an end in itself, which really irked me as a viewer. I believed that Westerns ought to be amusing, there's something inherently comic about the fact in part because they started off from the imitation of a world we'd dreamed about but wasn't our own, one we'd never even seen. Through filming this way, boredom set in. They'd slightly change the costumes, the setting, the faces from film to film, but the music was always the same, the essence of the films never changed. Then one fine day, after having thought a lot about it, I told some friends, "I'd like to demystify the genre." I saw that the idea went over well, and I began to write this story in one of my son's school notebooks, fitting it in among his quizzes and exams. We exploited all the elements typical of the American Western: the old geeze, the killer... no women, they don't enter in; Americans stick them in for commercial reasons, but they don't really fit in these stories. My experience as a Director of Photography on comedies helped me a bit as well. Even some films done with Toto: some of the timing, the bits of business. For example, I transposed a scene from LO SMEMORATO DI COLLEGNO (directed by Sergio Corbucci) with somebody talking and talking, and every time he interrupted him, Toto says, "Oh, really?" It became a tirade delivered by a killer with the responses provided by Trinity. In the case of Trinity, one can't talk of a Spaghetti Western because it was really an Italian style joke that we wanted to make.