Rafael Romero Marchent’s elder brother, Joaquín Luis, directed his first “real” Western, Tres hombres buenos, in the year 2 BL†, after having made two Zorro surrogates (El Coyote, La justicia del Coyote) and two Zorro non-surrogates (La venganza del Zorro, Cabalgando hacia la muerte [“riding towards death”]). But, as the saying goes, a coyote ain’t no fox, and a lemon ain’t no baby-orange: T. h. b. is as competently produced, directed and photographed as its American B-Western predecessors it succeeds in emulating to the last spur and rowel. Unfortunately, it’s also as predictable and tedious.
† The Leonean calendar’s date of reference is September 12, 1964. As the Julian and the Gregorian, the Leonean calendar omits a/the year zero. Accordingly, 1963 is the year 2 BL, 1964 1 BL, 1965 1 AL and so forth and so back (AL = anno Leonis, BL = before Leone).
The last hard men: Fernando Sancho, Claudio Undari
