Anything can bring up an old memory – even if its just a BBC headline
“Spaghetti western star Bud Spencer dies”
The BBC Headline was a well defined ‘pause’ for my mind. Then the pause morphed into a momentary vision….. and then I lived a time long lost…..
I was an eight year old boy once again.
I was getting ready for school around nine thirty in the morning when my father appeared in the old mirror behind me. It was an off day for baba and more importantly it was a Friday.
“Anything important in school today, Babu?” he asked touching my shoulder.
Standard eight; Co-education school….with nine girls in the section….
“Of course there are so many interesting…. I mean Important things in school today dad; there’s an exam also!”
“You know, babu! Exams will come and go…. but this film might not be showing again…!”
For people who joined later – in 1984 video cassettes didn’t bombard middle class households; DVDs was to hit the markets yet another 16 years later and the only environment available for the cinema-hungry minds were – the theaters.
“Which film?” I asked in two minds….. “school is good but how many kids have a father who would push his child to bunk school on account of watching a film!”
“Its called – They call me Trinity. And it’s a western one with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer.” He added.
Now, that was really something for me!
Because influenced by my dear father…. by that age I was already a huge fan of the Cowboys and Western movies. Supported by him I had already developed a great collection of Cowboy books and western comics and I had my cricket hat converted into a Cowboy hat with twisted edges and with a nice dark ribbon tied around – which had turned into a reason for envy for many of boys in the Para (locality).
Well, I bunked school that day and by default I also had bunked the maths exam. Baba and me – we headed for Purna Cinema in the Bhawanipur – Ghadimore, and enjoyed a funny Western with lots of potato chips and a forgotten cold drink named Campa Cola.
Now I have lost counts – how many times I have thanked my dad through the last 30 years of my grown up life, for the philosophy that he had shared with me on that special day. “Do things what you wish to do babu….. never feel any pressure from anyone or anything – always be a free man with a free mind.”
Today – with this unexpected opportunity – I thank him once again for making me the free man that I am today. Coming back to the film and to Bud…
They call me Trinity
The film was about a drifter, who comes to a town where his brother is sheriff. His brother is actually a robber who broke the real sheriff’s leg and became sheriff in order to hide out. They team up against the local land baron who is trying to get rid of the Mormon settlers in a valley he wishes to own.
Later with the digital and virtual era bringing the world closer – I actually bought the other Hill & Bud movies from the same Genre and watched. After the success of They call me Trinity they made a sequel, (1971), which was soon proved to be an even bigger success. Terence Hill and Bud Spencer paired up in over a dozen other films, using the formula of brawls and jokes established in They call me Trinity. Several of Hill’s and Spencer’s Westerns made prior to Trinity were re-released in the United States to take advantage of their popularity, with Boot Hill (1969) renamed as Trinity Rides Again.
I have watched almost 85 % of all the good western films till date but I still remember They Call Me Trinity – for “Trinity’s” delightful ending. Posing as lawmen Hill and Spencer, decided to defend a band of Mormons who were threatened by the evil Maj. Harriman (played by Farley Granger). But they tossed aside their guns, which was heresy in an Italian Western, and beat up the bad guys with their fists. And the fight was so highly stylized that it looked like a cross between the big production number in “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” (this film was a ready reference in my mind then) and funny Laurel and Hardy sequence. Later, when I read that Italian Western audiences would traditionally laugh at the violence, I knew why I liked that sequence so much in that film.
The BBC report that made me write this note (might help people who want to know more about Bud):
“Italian actor and filmmaker Bud Spencer, who starred in a number of Spaghetti Westerns, has died aged 86.
He passed away peacefully on Monday in Rome “and did not suffer from pain”, his son said.
Spencer, whose real name was Carlo Pedersoli, was known among his fans as the “big friendly giant” of the screen because of his height and weight.
Spencer, who was also a professional swimmer, played in more than 20 films from the 1950s to the 1980s.
“He had all of us next to him and his last words were ‘Thank you’,” his son Giuseppe Pedersoli said.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi tweeted: “Ciao #BudSpencer We loved you so much.”
Spencer was born in the southern Italian city of Naples in 1929, but later moved to Rome, where he became a promising swimmer. In 1950, he was the first Italian to swim 100m in under one minute. He later abandoned his sporting career and began playing in westerns and comedy films, often alongside Terence Hill (born Mario Girotti; born in 1939, Venice, Italy).
Spencer appeared in movies including Ace High, the Trinity trilogy and A Friend is a Treasure.
He once said he chose his name as a tribute to his favourite beer Budweiser and US actor Spencer Tracy.” BBC News
I thank BBC for covering the news and my friend Raja Dasgupta – for posting it on Face book to bring it to my notice and allowing me to spent some happy-strolling down memory lane remembering Bud and re-living priceless moments with my dad in the enchanting eighties.
Victor Ghoshe
28 Jun, 2016
