William Shatner vs. William Shatner in “White Comanche”

To celebrate William Shatner’s 80th birthday today, I am proud to present two Shatners for the price of one! Not too long ago, I picked up a DVD 20-pack of public domain spaghetti westerns in the bargain bin at Walmart for five bucks, and one particular title really caught my eye: a low-budget 1968 western called White Comanche which was filmed in Spain (meaning it’s technically not a spaghetti western, but never mind) and stars William Shatner as twins! He plays the dual role of heroic cowboy Johnny Moon and evil Indian Notah, who were both conceived by a white father and a Comanche mother, and the estranged twins are destined to be enemies until they clash to the death. I’m sure this idea was probably inspired by the Star Trek episode, “The Enemy Within”, where a transporter accident splits Kirk into two separate good and evil halves, but White Comanche takes things up a notch by treating us to the ridiculous sight of William Shatner in an Indian costume, reciting such dialogue as: “Notah’s brother talks like the white man he thinks he is. He’s afraid… to be Comanche”. The whole concept is done pretty poorly as they obviously didn’t have the money or technology to attempt any convincing split-screen effects, so they pretty much just get around the “two William Shatners” problem by never showing the twins together in the same shot. The Winklevoss twins from The Social Network this is not! But, hey, they do deliver a climax where two shirtless William Shatners have a joust to death! All in all, I guess that’s worth the 25 cents I paid for this movie.