I am proud to say that I thought “The Three Amigos” was a largely unfunny and lousy movie when I saw it the first time…this, despite the fact that I generally admire John Landis as a director of comedies (he will always have a place dear in my heart for directing “Animal House”), and although I generally appreciate the talents of the movie’s stars, Steve Martin and Martin Short (Chevy Chase not so much). For some reason it has been showing repeatedly on MGM+ of late, and upon re-watching the thing after my sock drawer was in order, I found another reason to hate it other than its annoying tone and its predictable gags. This time around, the film seemed egregiously racist.
Oh no! Have 40 years of relentless bludgeoning by political correctness, hyper-sensitivity and wokism taken over my brain? When I first viewed the film (which Wikipedia tells me was ranked 79th on Bravo’s list of the “100 Funniest Movies,” a factoid that only reaffirms my long-standing belief that Bravo is useless), that thought never occurred to me for a second.
One of many films that borrows heavily from the Western classic (and ethics movie) “The Magnificent Seven,”—others include “A Bug’s Life” and “Battle Beyond the Stars” along with a pretty bad remake, with Denzel Washington standing in for Yul Brenner—“The Three Amigos” (the film’s score is by the same composer who scored “The Magnificent Seven”) tells the tale of three incredibly white silent movie stars who end up rescuing a town of substantially helpless and poor Mexicans. The town’s tormenter is “El Guapo,” the evil leader of the most ugly, stupid, dirty and brutal band of Mexican bandits in silver screen history. All right, maybe the Mexicans in “The Wild Bunch” are worse, but the white guys in that bloody film are hardly what you’d like to see your daughter bring home to meet the family either. Naturally the three white guys prevail, despite their collective IQ of about 210, for an average of 70 each (it actually breaks down to 85 for Martin’s character, with Short at 70 and Chase at 65).
In contrast, “The Magnificent Seven” never seems racist. The residents of the poor Mexican town freed from the clutches of a band of marauding bandits who steal their food are lionized in the screenplay. In sharp contrast to “El Guapo,” the leader of the bad Mexicans in “The Magnificent Seven,” played with elan by the late, great Eli Wallach, is clever, charismatic, and almost likeable.
I cannot imagine even a funny version of “The Three Amigos” being made today. Is that a good thing? Or has my sense of humor been eroded by “The Great Stupid” along with the rest of the culture?
Ethics Alarms 
I’ve never, ever, in my life, “gotten” Steve Martin. I don’t find him in the least bit amusing. He’s just grating.
Agreed. The whole wild and crazy guy was stupid. He should have stuck to playing the banjo.
I think Martin is amazing. His entire comedy act is built on silliness – no sin there – and he’s a fine writer and director as well. A true polymath. And he did stick with playing the banjo – as a banjo player myself, I can assure you that he’s highly respected in the acoustic music community as a musician and composer.
Here’s his latest release, surrounded by A-list talent. The second banjo player is Alison Brown, who co-wrote the music with Martin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPb-1OuYAwM
He’s definitely a polymath, in that strange category of comics like Lucille Ball who is a deadly serious student of comedy with intrinsic intelligence and wit who when not performing is anything but comic: he’s an intellectual at heart. Not a natural actor, either, unlike most comedians.
My Pandora channels range all over the place, but one is “bluegrass”. I knew Martin played the banjo, but was surprised how often his work pops up on that channel.
Yes. He’s greatly respected by some of the top players in the world (the aforementioned Alison Brown among them). And as a banjo player, Martin is something of a rarity – he’s equally adept at bluegrass style and oldtime/clawhammer style, which is what he’s playing in the posted video. Most banjo players focus on one or the other and only a very few are good at both. He started as a bluegrasser – and he’s good at that – but frankly, I think he’s an even better clawhammer player.
I enjoyed his routines when it included his banjo. I just don’t find his brand of slapstick all that funny. I am not a fan of any form of slapstick humor anyway so it follows that I would not find his later works endearing.
When he tackled sensitive subjects as he did early in his career he was more entertaining ( Carson era) – a more Smothers Brothersesque form of comedy. It just seems that when he started doing bits on SNL it got tired and pedestrian for me. His movies, in my opinion, were just long SNL bits.
Nonetheless, to each his own, and if he brings joy or mirth to others my opinion is irrelevant.
Ever watch Leap Of Faith or The Big Year?
PWS
I understand he’s supposed to be a genius, but his humor leaves me cold. Again, to the point of being grating. Clearly, I’m missing the point of his oeuvre.
You haven’t been eroded or dumbed down by The Great Stupid or anything. It’s just a horribly bad movie.
Way back in my high school days, my girlfriend asked if I would watch “The Three Amigos” with her. I said “sure” because you know…two teens, her house, parents upstairs, a movie…
Anyways, that movie sucked on toast! I told her she wasted 90 minutes of my life with that worthless drivel, which meant no num-nums for Joel. I’ve never watched it since, I’ll never watch it again, I’ll never watch a sequel (though I have watched a couple Chevy Chase movies), and I’ve never re-watched so much as a clip of the movie.
Racist? Maybe, but who cares? It’s awful on many other levels. You know the one movie I watched as a youngster that I’d love to see again?…”Texas Across the River” with Dean Martin and Joey Bishop. I thought THAT movie was hilarious…and unlikely to pass through (woke) customs today.
Mrs. OB and I walked out of “Ishtar” after about five minutes.
Excellent call. Incidentally, I am two steps of Kevin Bacon from the producer of Ishtar….
Warren Beatty?
He was one of those mysterious funding, ego-driven executive producer-types. The studio producer who green-lighted Beatty’s project and doubled its budget was Guy McElwaine. And Columbia fired him after the bomb.
Crappy movie but no more racist than Cheech and Chong’s movies.
This is not a Blackface issue. Anyone who believes that exaggerated characterizations of Mexican heroes by white guys is racist needs to get a life. Whose panties got ruffled when the Wayans brothers made their parody of Valley Girl in White Chicks? I don’t recall any issue with that. The same could be said of Tarantino and Clooney when they made From Dusk Til Dawn. Are Johnny Weismuller’s Tarzan movies racist when they depict Africans as pygmies or cannibals? I don’t think so. If one believes the depictions are accurate then it is they who are the ignorant ones.
How groups are portrayed in movies is not based in reality. If it is supposed to then why bother going to a movie for entertainment; just go sit on a park bench and watch people.
Chris, in the immortal word of Jack: “Bingo”.
Tropic Thunder stole the premise from Amigos and did it better, funnier, and confronted the racism issue head-on.
That movie is now considered racist as well.
Tropic Thunder is one of our family favs. Cruise’s cameo steals the show.
I always thought that The 3 Amigos was white people making fun with the abusrdity of white people stereotyping other cultures.
You could be right, but if that was the purpose, it was botched badly.
I’ve seen it, but must not have thought well of the movie as I can’t remember much at all of it, and have never had any desire to see it again.
My prefeences, in order, would be Martin, Chase and Short.
Note: It would have to be 75, 70, nad 65 to average out to 70.
One can find racism in pretty much everything, if one looks hard enough, is emotionally fragile, and has a vivid imagination. That said, the Three Amigos was an awful movie.
Steve Martin may be an ‘acquired taste’, I’ve loved him in movies such as Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and Father of the Bride, but he’s had some stinkers too. As a musician, his talent is pretty amazing. Check out Youtube video of him playing banjo with several renowned players including Earl Scruggs; I think you may be impressed, unless of course you hate banjo playing.
I haven’t turned down the opportunity to watch many movies containing immature comedy, but I only watched a few minutes of Three Amigos before changing channels.
So many movies could not be made today for racist or other reasons. Examples: Airplane! (Barbara Billingsley speaking ‘jive’), Airplane2, Blazing Saddles, and even our mutual favorite Animal House (Dexter Lake Club scenes and underage girl at frat party among others). Legend has it that studio execs summoned none other than Richard Prior for his impressions before releasing the movie, and he loved it.
But those were simpler times. Surprised that there hasn’t been legal action taken to prohibit these and many, many others from being rebroadcast.
Well now I am thoroughly confused.
Up until this moment, I though the “Three Caballeros“, which I saw when I was very young, was a terrible movie that I vowed to never watch again.
Looking at the clip above, I might have actually seen the Three Amigos, and may need to give the Caballeros another chance.
(This has been a slow burning controversy in my head, because last year, I went to Disney, and saw that Donald Duck was one of the caballeros, thoroughly confusing me as to how the mariachi-dressed men fit into the movie….)
They are kind of linked. Originally, the Disney animated cartoon was the inspiration for the “Amigos” and was even going to have the same title. I last saw the Disney one when I was about 10: I think it’s considered politically incorrect too.
Ah, interesting.
Well, Disney still stands by Three Caballeros, at least. The Mexico pavilion is all Donald Duck!