''Go Away! Trinity Has Arrived in Eldorado'' () is a comedic
Spaghetti Western
The spaghetti Western is a broad subgenre of Western films produced in Europe. It emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's filmmaking style and international box-office success. The term was used by foreign critics because most o ...
from 1972.
It is one of the first of various "Trinity" films inspired by the earlier ''
They Call Me Trinity
''They Call Me Trinity'' () is a 1970 spaghetti Western comedy film written and directed by Enzo Barboni (under the pseudonym of E.B. Clucher) and produced by Italo Zingarelli. The film stars the duo of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer as half-brot ...
'' and ''
Trinity Is Still My Name
''Trinity Is Still My Name'' (, lit. "...They Kept Calling Him Trinity") is a 1971 Italian Spaghetti Western comedy film directed by Enzo Barboni. Starring the film duo of Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, it is a direct sequel to '' They Call M ...
''.
[ The observation regarding the other Trinity films is attributed to ]Joe D'Amato
Aristide Massaccesi (15 December 1936 – 23 January 1999), known professionally as Joe D'Amato, was an Italian film director, producer, cinematographer, and screenwriter who worked in many genres (western (genre), westerns, ''Commedia sexy all' ...
.
Plot and title
Jonathan Duke, a con man, and his partner Sebastian Carter make a living travelling the country and selling a dubious "
Elixir
An elixir is a sweet liquid used for medical purposes, to be taken orally and intended to cure one's illness. When used as a dosage form, pharmaceutical preparation, an elixir contains at least one active ingredient designed to be taken orall ...
of Long Life" - a scheme that is in the end exposed by an elderly man. Next, the two try to trick people at poker, but the plan ends badly in a saloon brawl.
After these two introductory scenes, the main plot of the film starts. Duke and Carter plan to team up with Ringo Jones and his band to rob the crazy Mexican general Eldorado, who believes he is a god and sits on a golden thrown flanked by two servant girls, of his gold treasure. Duke does so successfully by dazzling Eldorado with magic tricks, then overcoming him in a fencing duel and tying him up.
The film's English title notwithstanding, "Trinity" is the name of a town, not a person, and the Italian title more accurately reflects the film's plot.
Cast
Production
The film was shot at
Gordon Mitchell
Gordon Mitchell (born Charles Allen Pendleton; July 29, 1923 – September 20, 2003) was an American actor and bodybuilder, known for his starring roles in Italian sword-and-sandal and Spaghetti Western films.
Early life
Charles Allen Pendleto ...
's western village at
Manziana
Manziana is a (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Rome in the Italian region of Latium, located about northwest of Rome.
Manziana borders the following municipalities: Bracciano, Canale Monterano
Canale Monterano is a ''comune'' (munic ...
.
As to the length of the shoot, D'Amato gives two conflicting statements: In an interview published in print in 1996, D'Amato recalled it had lasted six days,
whereas in a video interview conducted in 1998, he said it had taken three days.
Diego Spataro, however, stated to "Nocturno" that it had lasted four and a half days. Spataro also remembered the anecdote that as soon as shooting had closed, D'Amato had said, "Tell the cook to throw in the spaghetti" ().
Directorial credit
Sources disagree as to the identity of the film's director. The credited name, Dick Spitfire, is a pseudonym for
Diego Spataro,
a name that had also been used for an earlier film, ''
Django and Sartana Are Coming... It's the End''.
In his 1992 book on Spaghetti Westerns, Thomas Weisser assumes that the name is a pseudonym for director
Demofilo Fidani
Demofilo Fidani (born 8 February 1914 on a steamship bound for Cagliari; died 4 April 1994) was an Italian film director (24 films), set designer (more than 200 films), painter, and a regarded medium and author.
As director, Fidani specialized i ...
and, consequently, states that Fidani was director for both ''Django'' and ''Go Away!'' However, Weisser cites no additional evidence other than the similarity of the two films' treatment of humor with that seen in other Fidani films.
[ Regarding the use of humor, Weisser says the "sight gags are humorous at first, but ..timing is so bad that the joke quickly turns from funny to tedious".]
In an interview published in 1996,
Joe D'Amato
Aristide Massaccesi (15 December 1936 – 23 January 1999), known professionally as Joe D'Amato, was an Italian film director, producer, cinematographer, and screenwriter who worked in many genres (western (genre), westerns, ''Commedia sexy all' ...
said that ''Go Away!'' was the first film he directed and that he shot it in six days with the help of assistant director
Romano Gastaldi. He also acknowledged that the official director's credit went to Spataro, and not to him.
In another interview some two years later, D'Amato elaborated on this point, stating that he had not wanted to receive directorial credit because he had feared that, once he had worked as a director, other directors would have been hesitant to hire him as a cinematographer. D'Amato further recalled that Spataro, who had made many Spaghetti Westerns with Fidani, had plenty of stock footage from those films, and that some of it was used in editing ''Go Away!''.
[ In this latter interview, D'Amato states that the film was shot in three days, not the six-day period stated in the 1996 interview.]
In his 1999 book on Italian cult films, Marco Giusti cites an interview with Diego Spataro in which Spataro recalled that D'Amato initially had wanted him to act as a puppet (): D'Amato would give him the information he was then to pass on the actors so they would know in which way to act; after 10 minutes, however, D'Amato became aware of the absurdity of the situation and took charge himself. Giusti therefore attributes the direction of the film to D'Amato, and states that Fidani, for whom D'Amato had often worked as a
camera operator
A camera operator, or depending on the context cameraman or camerawoman, is a professional operator of a film camera or video camera as part of a film crew. The term "cameraman" does not necessarily imply that a male is performing the task.
...
, was involved as a producer.
[ Regarding the interview with Spataro from which Giusti cites, Giusti indicates the source only as "Nocturno" - probably referring to the Italian film magazine of that name, but without any indication as to which issue or year he found the interview in.]
In his book on Spaghetti Westerns published in 2002, film historian Ulrich Bruckner describes ''Go Away!'' as a collaboration between Spataro, Fidani and D'Amato. He credits all three as directors of the film.
The motorbike gag
One of the film's comic effects is Eldorado's horse, which has motorbike mirrors attached to it. When Eldorado arrives at an oat vendor,
he asks him to "fill it up with super" ().
Reception
In a contemporaneous review of the film, ''La Révue du Cinéma'' deplored mistakes in chronology, chaotic editing and lack of talent in storytelling, but at the same time recognized its quirky humour.
[ Month of issue and page number are not known.]
More recently (2002), Ulrich Bruckner found it to be among the better collaborations of D'Amato, Fidani and Spataro.
In his 2004 book on Joe D'Amato, Gordiano Lupi thinks that ''Go Away!'', in contrast to the western ''
A Bounty Killer in Trinity'' which D'Amato is also said to have directed, contains ingenious ideas that to Lupi are the hallmark of D'Amato's involvement. Lupi thinks that the film's best moments are its comic or "trashy" scenes, whereas he criticizes what he calls the "structural" parts: lengthy chases, laborious ambushes, endless, predictable shootouts and unrealistic brawls. To Lupi, the film is discontinuous and "loses itself" towards the end when it seems the director did not known where he wanted to end up. Still, Lupi applauds the last scene in which the Duke puts a hand of five aces on the table, calling it - in the Italian version - a "superpokermaggiore" (translated: "a major superpoker").
See also
*
List of Spaghetti Western films
This list of spaghetti Westerns includes Western film, Western films, primarily produced and directed by Italian production companies between 1913 and 1978. For a list of non-Italian produced European Westerns, see the list of Euro-Western fil ...
References
External links
*
''Scansati... a Trinità arriva Eldorado'' on Spaghetti-Western.net
{{Joe D'Amato
1972 films
Films directed by Joe D'Amato
1970s Italian-language films
Spaghetti Western films
1970s Western (genre) comedy films
Italian Western (genre) comedy films
1972 comedy films
1970s Italian films