Trinita voit rouge

Not far from directors like Elio Petri or Francesco Rosi, Mario Camus tells a story of growing social awareness when killer Marco comes to town, paid to shoot a man who wants to start a revolution. Watching his boss Don Antonio suppressing the working class, Marco soon regrets what he has done and joins the revolution. For the sake of drama, there is a beautiful lady to fall in love with and a brother who does not understand his change of motivation. It may not be extraordinary for 1970, but surely is a solid early work of its director.

The Spanish original title "La colera del viento" means "The Wrath of the Wind", and as Don Lucas quotes the biblical "For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind" (Hosea 8,7) in the dialog, the connexion seems clear. However, in most countries, the distributors preferred titles similar to the successful "Trinita" comedies with Terence Hill, e.g. "Trinity Sees Red", even though "La colera del viento" is hardly intended for the same audience. The restored Spanish version for DVD runs 102 minutes instead of 93 like the old cinema print, which apparently was no censorship issue, merely a few dialog scenes which had been shortened. I personally didn't feel the film was too slow moving, it gives time to breathe and time to think. If you like watching Terence Hill in serious films, try "Il vero e il falso" by Eriprando Visconti next.

As befits Camus, one of the more talented and purposeful Spanish film directors whose work we have been able to glimpse despite the miserable English language distribution given Hispanic material, "Collera del Vento", at least in it's English dubbed "Revenge of Trinity" version, tries for atmosphere and organises it's intrigue round a Marxist movement among the peons.

The cast is good with Hill and Gimpera looking great and individual sequences are atmospherically staged but the film needs more action to liven up its near two hours mainly made up of of brooding introspection. Dumb English lines like "The only thing they understand is the whip" don't help either. Fernando Rey shows up late and with an unsuitable English voice.

Hill isn't playing his jolly Trinity character despite the re-titling.

Terence Hill and Mario Pardo are a couple killers: always on the run, always ready to kill without compunction. But when they are hired to kill a labor agitator who's making trouble for the local landlords, Hill decides he doesn't like the way things are, especially after pretty innkeeper Maria Gracia Buccela stops the laborers from lynching him for murdering the organizers.

It's a well written spaghetti western, and Hill is good as the steely-eyed western hit man who develops a conscience. I have some issues with the dubbing, but a good cast, including Fernando Rey and Maximo Valverde, keep things humming along with a nice bit of subtext.

Although this movie stars Terence Hill and has the name "Trinity" in its title, "The Revenge Of Trinity" is not connected to the two Trinity movies Hill made with Bud Spencer. In fact, many viewers who associate Hill with light-hearted movies will be surprised that this movie is dead serious. Hill plays a much darker character than usual, and does pretty well in this role, showing he has more talent than mere comedy. While that may attract some viewers, I have a feeling that all the same many viewers will be turned off by this movie because of its extremely slow pace. Note that I didn't say BORING - just SLOW. Also, there is both very little action and very little music on display here, two big selling points for many spaghetti westerns. However, despite the slow pace and the lack of action and music, I have to admit that the movie weaves a strange compelling spell. I was interested to find out how things would be resolved. Those who are deeply into offbeat movies and spaghetti westerns will probably find this movie interesting. If not, I would strongly caution those other potential viewers that this may not be their cup of tea.

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.