BRICK RIVERS ON “THE CLOWN WITH NO NAME” TRILOGY’S SURVIVAL.
In 1967, American movie audiences flocked to theaters to see “The Man With No Name” spaghetti western trilogy, released in Italy in 1964 – 1966. “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For A Few Dollars More” and “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly” reinvented the Western genre and made an international movie star out of Clint Eastwood.
But what if this movie fan told you that there was a second spaghetti western trilogy, poised to be even bigger than the first, that was lost nearly sixty years ago, just before it was set to be launched stateside in 1968?
“It’s true,” says excited movie mogul Aldo Goldfarb from his Burbank office, “’The Clown With No Name’ movies cleaned up in Europe in 1967. ‘A Fistful of Pie Crumbs,’ ‘For A Few Pie Crumbs More’ and ‘The Good, The Bad and The Custard’ were smash hits. The European Flower Power kids just flocked to them. It didn’t hurt that they were stoned out of their minds. But a lira is a lira.”
“Were they comedies?” this scribe wonders.
AVENGING ANGEL
“Not intentionally,” replies Goldfarb. “The first movie was a standard avenging angel Western. Like the ‘Dollars’ movies, it was an Italian-German-Spanish production. The Italian director hated the German producer, especially since the producer insisted on having one of his favorite actors, the sleazy Klaus Kerplunk, play the lead gunfighter. Well, Klaus came down with syphilis and went MIA on the first day of shooting.
“Now, on the same day, a clown known as Mr. Punch was due to arrive at a staging area for his newest circus gig. The guy was in his mid-twenties and was almost magical. He was raised in a circus. His juggler father dropped him on his head a lot. So the kid knew how to take a fall and tumble.
“He was an amazing acrobat, very in-demand. Mr. Punch could throw a pie up to twenty yards and, because there weren’t any other kids in his circus growing up, he hung out with the circus animals. People say he could calm down and get along with any critter if you gave him five minutes.
“So, he’s in full clown garb and his taxi lets him off at the studio by mistake. He walks in, and the director spots him and decides he’s going to stick it to the German producer. He just takes Mr. Punch, hands him a script, and decides he’s going to make a spaghetti western with a clown. And Mr.
Punch worked his magic.
A FISTFUL OF PIE CRUMBS
“He wouldn’t use a gun. He used pies, water balloons, banana peels, joy buzzers, rubber chickens, seltzer bottles, sarcasm and hand puppets to defeat the bad guys. They changed the script accordingly. He’d wear different outfits in different situations, to make his clown more relatable, more universal. The director couldn’t believe it. The cast was in heaven. ‘A Fistful of Pie Crumbs’ took Europe by storm.”
“Wow!” your humble scribe theorizes.
“Indeed,” says Goldfarb. “A U.S. release of the film was scheduled the next year. Then, tragedy struck. A deranged John Wayne fan, who considered the cowboy clown blasphemy, burned down Slapstick Studio Cinematografico. All prints of the film were destroyed. Everyone assumed they were lost forever… until the Pope found them six months ago.”
“The Pope?” this reporter gulps.
“It’s a miracle, right?” laughs Goldfarb. “It turns out, the Vatican has an amazing film library in all formats. The current Pope was having it moved when he discovered Pope Paul VI’s stash from the 1960s. Pope Paul was a true scholar, very serious in public, but he loved to laugh. He had a fantastic comedy library, including two sets of prints from each clown film. They’re being flown stateside right now”
“Well, slap me silly and call me Sally!” I say, blinking. “Whatever happened to Mr. Punch?”
“After the trilogy, he decided to leave Westerns behind. Since he loved animals, he decided to film the life of St. Francis of Assisi, a saint who called himself ‘God’s fool.’ Unfortunately, Punch played the saint in clown face. So, he was in blasphemy territory, again. He changed his name, moved to Sweden and started a religious cult centered around pies.”
A CLOWN WITH NO NAME
“Is he still alive?”
“Who knows? Mr. Punch had no birth certificate, no known family members and he was always changing his look. He could be entertaining at bar mitzvahs in New Jersey, today!”
“So the clown with no name was played by a man with no name?”
Goldfarb nods as his cell phone lurches to life. He recognizes the caller and answers. “Yes. Yes. What? What? Are you sure? Yes. Yes. Nobody was hurt. Thank God.”
He stays on the phone, punches in another number and whispers into it. He nods a lot. “Gracias, Padre.”
“What’s up?” I ask.
“The plane carrying the film prints crashed into the Atlantic. The crew is safe. The plane is at the bottom of the ocean.”
“The prints?”
“Now, they sleep with the fishes. You have a car? Mine’s in the shop.”
“Well, sure.”
“Got an hour to spare? It’ll make a great ending to your story.”
“Um. Where are we going?”
“St. Francis of Assisi Church in Silverlake. You’ll watch me get baptized. And you will pray for a third set of prints.”
Such a tragedy that another piece of clownish media was lost. Perhaps if the plane had run out of gas before it hit the water, the prints would have been okay.
I think I saw the clown on a video game. He was a serial killer with “flaming” hair.
There are no rules or limits, allowing players to explore endless musical possibilities.