Man of the East

Man of the East (original Italian title ...E poi lo chiamarono il magnifico) is a 1972 Italian-French-Yugoslav Spaghetti Western comedy directed by Enzo Barboni under his E.B. Clucher alias, starring Terence Hill. The story unfolds in the Wild West as the railroad is pushed toward the Pacific. Sir Thomas More, a cultivated English gentleman, travels to America at his late father's wish and is placed in the care of three rough bandits, the father's former partners in crime, who are charged with turning him into a proper man. The refined young aristocrat loathes violence and prefers riding a bicycle to a horse, but after falling for the daughter of a local landowner and being thrashed again and again by his romantic rival, he decides to learn to brawl and shoot so he can prove he is capable of protecting her. The comedy springs from the collision between genteel European manners and the coarse frontier, while the march of modernization, which some characters try in vain to escape, recurs throughout. Owing to its similar title and comic style, the picture is often mistakenly grouped with the Trinity films as an unofficial third entry.