When silent film stars Lucky Day, Dusty Bottoms and Ned Nederlander get fired, they take a job offer from Mexico: Doing a show with El Guapo, supposedly the most famous actor there. Traveling there in hope of getting good money, they arrive only to learn soon that El Guapo is not an actor, but a cruel gang leader suppressing people. He abducts the mayor's beautiful daughter Carmen (to be his wife) in revenge for the people's cry for help. Now, all hopes of the village folks rest on the weak shoulders of three minor-talented actors, who can't just walk off the set this time.

In the sequence where they have to say magic words to summon the invisible swordsman, one of Steve Martin's magic words is "Hfuhruhurr," his character's name in The Man with Two Brains (1983).

Lucky Day:
Well, we're just gonna have to use our brains.


Ned Nederlander, Dusty Bottoms:
Damn it!

Revealing mistakes: When the Three Amigos are escaping on the airplane with Carmen, the string holding up the plane is visible when it curves to the right.

Written by Randy Newman
Performed by Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and Martin Short