Dir: Alfonso Balcázar
Star: George Martin, Marina Malfatti, Klaus Kinski, Daniel Martín
a.k.a. There’s a Noose Waiting for You… Trinity!

Trinity Harrison (Martin) returns to his family farm after spending years away from home. He had been tacking vengeance of the man who killed his brother and raped his sister-in-law, then spent time in prison before breaking out. His wife, Norma (Malfatti), is more than unconvinced by his sudden re-appearance, and his son, Jimmy, is even less impressed. However, Norma grudgingly agrees to take him back, as long as he swears never to touch his guns again. This is a problem, because there’s a gang in town, led by Slim (Martin) looking to railroad landowners off their land, so they can buy it up cheap and make a tidy profit from the railroad they know will be coming through. Their escalating strategy of tension pushes Trinity to the edge of his vow, but this reluctance to take direct action is seen as cowardice by Jimmy.

There’s another problem, in that his escape has led to a price being placed on Trinity’s head. Out to collect this is Scott (Kinski), a bounty hunter, who succeeds in trailing Trinity as far as the local town, but doesn’t have enough information to identify him definitively. So he hangs around the local saloon and watches with a jaundiced eye as events unfold and tensions escalate, until he gets the artistic rendering of Trinity’s face that he needs to make his move. Will Trinity be able to fend off the predatory takeover bid of Slim, and stop Scott from collecting on the bounty?

It’s apparently a semi-sequel, semi-remake of a film made five years earlier, Clint the Stranger. It also starred Martin, but for the sequel, both the hero and film were renamed in some territories, in order to cash in on the popularity of the previous year’s They Call Me Trinity, which is not related in any way. This was sometimes credited as being directed by Martin too, but appears instead to have been the work of Balcázar, who seems generally regarded as in the lower-tier of spaghetti Western auteurs. It wasn’t the first film in which Martin had appeared alongside Kinski; they had both also starred in Mister Zehn Prozent – Miezen und Moneten, made four years earlier. At least this time Martin keeps his shirt on past the opening credits.

Outside of one element, this is largely rote stuff: the gunslinger who isn’t allowed to retire in peace is among the most regular tropes in the genre, and there isn’t much in the script or performances to differentiate this version from the dozens of others. The difference here, you won’t be surprised to hear, is Kinski. This may have been just another one of his roles for hire, but Scott is far and away the most interesting character in the film. He elevates every single scene in which the bounty-hunter appears, even if he is doing no more than standing in the background, observing. You sense Scott’s mind is like a computer, taking all the information in, and figuring out what’s going to happen, and what his options are, three moves ahead.

It’s a sharp contrast to Trinity, who feels like he has strayed in from a much more traditional Western, demonstrating a normal set of morals and goals, e.g. just wants his family, doesn’t use violence except in extremis). The difference is demonstrated early on, when Scott explains his preference for bringing back his targets dead. “They’re quieter that way,” and he resents having to feed them. I imagine he only keeps them alive if the difference in bounty for doing so, is more than the cost of the food. This is pragmatism in its most pure, undiluted form, and can only be admired as such. Kinski is also sporting a mane of long, blond hair which is thoroughly unlike the traditional, close-cropped styles preferred by everyone else. Nobody ever calls him out on it, which is certainly the sensible option.

There’s a YouTube edit of the film out there, which includes only Klaus’s scenes, and there’s something to be said for it. What it loses in narrative coherence, is likely more than made up for in Kinski-esque intensity, and you could probably use the hour saved by this version, considerably more productively. For once the core scenario has been established, it’s necessary to fill the running time with subplots such as the other farmer who refuses to sell his land. He is framed by Slim and his crew for a bank robbery, and sentenced to hang. It’s just not very interesting, serving only in so much that it pushes Trinity toward the inevitable breaking point, which we all know is going to form the movie’s climax.

I am somewhat amused by Norma’s flexible moral standards, which completely forbid her husband to touch a gun, but are perfectly fine with him brawling his way through some surprisingly brutal bouts of fisticuffs. I should also mention the score is by genre legend Ennio Morricone, though there’s not much here that would identify it as such, and the soundtrack doesn’t even appear to have received any kind of standalone release. I’d have been happy to watch a series of films based on the exploits and adventures of Scott, seeing as this is a character which offers a wealth of potential, not least in the copious amount of moral ambiguity possessed. Still, the 30 minutes or so of Kinski goodness we get is decent nutritional value, even if the movie overall could have done with a tastier sauce to go with its helping of spaghetti.