Bounty Killer for Trinity (1972)

The good folks of Trinity are being terrorized by a band of outlaws led by the Navajero brothers.

Every time a gold shipment goes out, the bandits seem to know where and when and are there to ambush it and ruthlessly kill all the guards.

The townsfolk send for a federal agent, but he is ambushed, too. With no where left to turn, they hire bounty killer Alan Boyd (Jeff Cameron), who will take on any job, for a hefty price.

Where others failed, Boyd excels, dispatching of the bad guys with brutal efficiency.

Turns out someone in town — the bar owner named Pizzaro — is in cahoots with the bandits.

A drunk slips that secret to Boyd. And, when it comes down for a final showdown with the outlaws, this bounty killer has a secret weapon up his sleeve — a crossbow that’s particularly deadly when dynamite is attached to its arrows.

Review:

Below standard fare Spaghetti, where bad men ride into town and raise hell for the hell of it and one of the town’s leading citizens is obviously crooked, but no one seems capable of figuring that out.

You know it’s going to be a long haul when an escorted wagon makes its way slowly down a trail as the credits roll. No sooner have they stopped than shots ring out. Instantly, one guard shouts that it’s the Navajero gang.

Cameron is no Clint Eastwood, but he does carry around a wad of wanted posters, smirks when the men he’s just killed aren’t worth much money and even asks for a reward from the father of a young woman he’s freed. As for the leading baddies, they do their best acting when they’re dying.

Oh, and there’s a strong tie between this film and 1971’s “Black Killer.” Identical scenes appear in both movies. The same characters play the villains, and they wear identical clothing. Even the blinding of a key character at the end is repeated in both movies, though the method varies just slightly. Of the two, this is the marginally less entertaining.

Directed by:
Aristide Massaccesi
as Oskar Faradine

Cast:
Jeff Cameron … Alan Boyd
Antonio Cantafora … Pizarro
Enzo Pulcrano … Sancho Navajero
as Paul McCren
Calogero Caruana … Paco Navajero
as Ted Jones
Tiziani Dini … Carmen
Atitiolio Dottesio … John, town official
Filippo Perego … George, the mayor
Carla Mancini … Annie
Silvio Klein … Sheriff
Ari Hanow … Willie, the undertaker

aka:
un Bounty killer a Trinita
Bounty Hunter in Trinity

Composer: Vasil Kojucharov

Runtime: 87 min. (video copy, 81 min.)

Memorable lines:

Willie, the undertaker: “Believe me Alan, I never want to be the one undertaker who makes your last suit of clothes, though it would be a masterpiece, because it’d be made for Alan Boyd, the notorious bounty hunter.”
Alan Boyd: “I’m sorry to deprive posterity of a masterpiece, but the man who makes my coffin hasn’t been born yet.”

Carmen: “You may own the saloon, but not me.”
Ramon: “Why don’t you marry me, Carmen. Then your father’s gold would be mine by rights. Not a bad idea, huh? Us getting married?”
Carmen: “I always knew you had ambition. I’d just as soon marry a lizard.”

Trivia:

Alan Boyd’s asking price for his services: A flat $10,000, plus $2,000 per dead body, plus any bounty on the dead men’s heads. Which explains why he carries around a wad of wanted posters everywhere he goes.

The Spaghetti West is filled with imaginative weapons, but bounty killer Alan Boyd’s crossbow in this film might have been a matter of economy. Entire action scenes are lifted from “The Black Killer” for this movie. In that film, the hero is accompanied by a bow-and-arrow wielding, vengeance seeking Indian girl when it’s time for the climatic attack on the killers’ hideout. In order for the action scenes to match, Jeff Cameron had to be equipped with something that shot arrows.

Jeff Cameron had an uncredited role as cowboy townsman with a rope in Adios Gringo (1965), but soon graduated to a Spaghetti leading man, appearing in about a dozen Westerns. He even did two turns as Sartana in 1969.