It’s amazing that this is the only film that Steve Martin, Martin Short and Chevy Chase all worked on together. Though, perhaps, based on the reported attitude of Chase and the continued friendship of Martin and Short (if you’re not watching Only Murders in the Building, you should be), we can assume what went on behind the scenes. Three Amigos also has the great distinction of being Randy Newman’s (“Short People”, “I Love L.A.”, Toy Story music) sole screenwriting credit. Go figure.

El Guapo and his Mexican gang terrorize the village of Santa Poco. The village leader’s daughter, Carmen, travels to surrounding villages in search of someone who can protect Santa Poco. She stops inside a church where they are showing a silent film starring the Three Amigos – Lucky Day, Dusty Bottoms, and Ned Nederlander. Thinking they’re real heroes, Carmen sends them a heavily-edited telegram asking for their help. The Amigos are fired and kicked off the studio lot from where they made their hit movies when they receive the telegram. Thinking it’s a celebrity appearance to their Mexican fanbase, the Amigos sneak back into the lot to get their costumes. In Mexico, they meet with Carmen and the village welcomes them with open arms. The next day, some of El Guapo’s men ride in and the Amigos put on a stunt show as a display of scaring the men off. Confused, the men go back to El Guapo to tell them what they’ve seen. The next day El Guapo returns with his posse and during another stunt show, shoots Lucky. Now that the Amigos realize they are in very real danger, they whimper and beg for their lives. El Guapo lets them live since he only kills men, but he sets fire to Santa Poco and kidnaps Carmen. The Amigos decide to be real heroes for once and go after them. They infiltrate El Guapo’s hideout during his 40th birthday party and leave with Carmen, knowing the posse is right on their trail. They return to Santa Poco and encourage the villagers to recreate the ending of The Magnificent Seven, complete with coordinated costumes.

This film could have looked very different from the finished product. For one thing, this wasn’t John Landis’ Final Cut of the film. The studio edited heavily while he was on trial for an accidental death from his segment on Twilight Zone: The Movie. Also, originally, Steven Spielberg was set to direct (if you’ve seen 1941, you know what a mistake it would have been to let that man do a comedy). The trio was also originally going to be Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Then it switched to Steve Martin, Bill Murray and Robin Williams. I’m gonna level with you, as much as I like some of these names, I don’t think I could have stomached the movie with some of them attached. So, thank goodness for circumstance, I guess.

Three Amigos is hilarious from the situations to the dialogue to the homages to other Westerns. Of course, the fact that Martin, Short and Chase are naturally funny helps the movie out a lot. The best scenes in the film involve original songs also written by Randy Newman – the “My Little Buttercup” bar scene surrounded by tough hombres, and the singing-cowboy-around-the-campfire, “Blue Shadows on the Trail”, complete with horse accompaniment are a riot.

Bonus Review: The Jerk

Another Steve Martin classic. This time under the direction of Carl Reiner (actor, director, creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show and one half of the 2000 Year Old Man). The Jerk is Martin’s first starring role after writing for the Smothers Brothers and beginning a career in stand-up. In fact, Martin wrote the treatment for The Jerk around some of his routine – starting with a one-line gag: “It wasn’t always easy for me; I was born a poor black child.” And that’s exactly how the movie starts.

Navin grows up with his family of Black sharecroppers in Mississippi, and he doesn’t realize he’s adopted until he finds he can dance in rhythm to music that could be on the Lawrence Welk Show, when he couldn’t dance to the Negro Spirituals his family sang. He decides he’s going to see the great, wide world. He gets a job at a gas station and ends up destroying a church when he tries to detain a couple of guys he recognizes as trying to steal from him. Another customer’s glasses break, and Navin makes a brace for them so the man can still see. A man randomly picks Navin’s name out of the phone book and decides to kill him. He shoots at Navin while he’s on the job from a distance with a rifle. He misses each time and instead shoots holes into the stacked cans of gas. Navin runs away and joins a carnival as a weight guesser. There, he is swept up by a motorcyclist into a one-sided relationship. He falls in love with a girl named Marie, and they have the happiest time together, but she leaves him claiming he cannot be financially stable working at a carnival. Meanwhile, the glasses he fixed became the prototype of an invention called the “Opti-Grab”. Navin is given his share of the profits and is able to send his family money as well as convince Marie to marry him. They buy a mansion and are overrun with possessions, but then Navin is hit with a lawsuit claiming the Opti-Grab leaves people permanently cross-eyed. He loses the suit and goes broke. He ends up homeless in an alley until his family and Marie find him and bring him home.

The Jerk is very episodic and some of the scenes barely string together, but it’s still good fun. Some of the lines are so quotable (“That man hates these cans!”) and some of the visual gags come out of nowhere that the surprise alone is enough to put you in stitches (hitching a ride with a man who only takes him a block, or Marie pulling out a flugelhorn during their duet on the beach). Honestly, trying to make logical sense of the film will only lead to headaches and frustration. It’s a relentless frenzy of goofy jokes, but that’s why it’s worth watching.