Mi nombre es Ninguno

This spaghetti-in-cheek western from Sergio Leone and crew (direction credit went to Leone protégé Tonino Valerii) opens with déjà vu. Haven't we seen Henry Fonda getting shaved before, wondering if the barber's going to slit his throat?

Referencing his own "Once Upon a Time in the West" of five years earlier, idea-man Leone also pays satirical homage to perhaps the bloodiest western in history by inserting "the wild bunch" into this film as a band of one hundred, fifty men who appear only and repeatedly as a thundering herd in Leone-signature panoramas, accompanied by another impressive Ennio Morricone score, a herd which would-be greatest gunslinger, Nobody, proposes that Fonda's character face single-handedly to get him into the history books before Nobody draws him down. (Making the reference explicit, Nobody reads "Sam Peckinpah" off a grave marker in the scene leading to the first appearance here of "the wild bunch.")

As derivative as this movie may be, it's still enjoyable for its performances, its photography, its score, its style, its "twist" ending, its speed-up scenes which give Nobody's antics a silent Chaplin hearkening, and its one-off take on the spaghetti western which Leone made popular.

All that gunslinger Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) wants to do is retire while he's still alive. But Nobody (Terence Hill) wants to see Beauregard go out in blaze of glory. Nobody dogs him across the West insisting that if Beauregard will just face one more enemy, he's sure to go down in the annals of history. But Nobody's idea is for Beauregard to have it out with the 150 man strong Wild Bunch - all alone.

The shortest and most to the point description that I can come up with for this movie is "Sergio Leone Meets the Three Stooges". On the one hand, you've got Henry Fonda in the traditional Western role (albeit Spaghetti Western). On the other hand, you've got Terence Hill performing some of the best slapstick and pantomime since the era of the silent film. It sounds like an unlikely combination, but Valerii successfully marries the two styles into a very enjoyable experience. The scenes with Fonda and Hill together are as good as you'll see in a Spaghetti Western.

While some of Hill's comedy seems goofy and doesn't work that well, most of it is very funny. There are moments of pure genius. The shooting scene in the saloon is a particular favorite of mine.

Morricone's score is amazing. He draws inspiration from and pays homage to some of the earlier scores he did. I was reminded several times of Once Upon a Time in the West, the Dollars Trilogy, and other Spaghetti Westerns. Writing positive comments on a Morricone score is becoming a bit redundant. Did he ever write a score that you could call bad?

For those of us who have only seen My Name is Nobody on VHS with bad transfers and missing footage, the new Image DVD is a real treat. It was a lot like watching the movie for the first time. I never thought this movie could look so good. My only complaint is the lack of extras. The disc doesn't even have a trailer.

This is one of my favorite spaghetti westerns. Terrence Hill is very good as the brash newcomer, and Henry Fonda has always been good.... in this, he is excellent as the tired gunslinger who wants to hang it up.

The score by Ennio Morricone is outstanding.

The premise of the story is that Fonda, Jack Beauregard, wants to retire. He even has a berth on the ship "Sundowner," destination Australia, reserved. "Nobody," Hill, wants Beauregard to go out in style.... so he creates a showdown with the Wild Bunch: one man against 150 of the meanest SOBs in the West. The resolution of this conflict is.... interesting. ^_^

This is a great Tonino Valerii & Sergio Leone film featuring Henry Fonda & Terence Hill. This is a take on the Trinity character Hill has done in the past, not the same character but a variation of it. This movie is a lot more serious than the Trinity(s) but still provides some very very funny scenes & plenty of them. The more serious side is a great story, a man (Fonda) who is a living legend, especially in the eyes of a stranger (Hill) who will do everything he can to see his hero get written in the history books. It is adventurous, touching, and hysterical. All the elements of a perfect film for me. Also features an amazing soundtrack by none other than Ennio Morricone. Both the film & its score are gems. Worth watching over & over. A true 10!

Sergio Leone picked a good director to helm his production of My Name is Nobody, as Tonino Valerii brings a sensibility that wouldn't of been the same had Leone taken the helm. It's not that Valerii steers too far away from certain trademarks of the quintessential spaghetti western director: expansive close-ups, beautiful master-shots showing the sprawling landscapes of the deserts and small towns of the old west, and of course Ennio Morricone. But this time there's a change of the guard in terms of homage- now it's not just going for an epic quality, but full-on comedy stylings.

There's room to compare this to old westerns with Henry Fonda just as much as there's comparison to the Three Stooges. Or Buster Keaton. Because nothing is taken too seriously, it ends up having some strong underlying statements about gunslingers in the old west, the young catching up with the old, and the old 'times they are a changing' logic that comes with the territory.

The tone is light, though at the same time there's still that level of ultra-cool suspense that can be found in Leone's work. Valerii takes it up a notch in the direction of something a little less violent, however (the film is technically rated PG, despite quite a few dozen deaths at one point). Terrence Hill is the title character, a guy who's strikingly handsome but perpetually goofy, who takes on as a big challenge Jack Bouregarde (Fonda, his last western, a good one to go out on, if not as great as his previous role as Frank), who's a hero gunslinger. Nobody has fixed a 'Wild Bunch' to come after him, and to what end? Much of the film focuses on Nobody, until the second half when Nobody keeps prodding on Jack with his vague threats in the guise of 'fairy tales' his grandfather used to tell him.

And all the while it's consistently hilarious material, particularly if you know Leone's stuff well (eg the gag from For a Few Dollars More where shooting a hat holds as much danger as comic timing), and tries at least to plug into the viewer who's in on the joke of not just an homaged western and homaged Leone western (Morricone's score has tones from Once Upon a Time in the West, but comes close to sounding like a coffee commercial at times), but an homage to silent comedies and slapstick.

Where else, for example, will you see a gunslinger such as Nobody fight off a potential assailant in a bar by just continually slapping him around as if Moe Howard possessed him for a full minute? How about the gun being slung up at 16 frames-per-second? Or a montage within an action sequence with Jack versus the 'Wild Bunch' where freeze-frames of reactions from Nobody and pages from 'history' showing Jack killing off the posse pop up? And there's a fun-house/mirror scene that comes about as close to The Lady From Shanghai as the most memorable in all cinema.

Some of it might just be all silly-by-proxy; it's a big belly laugh to see Hill with a serious face hold a stick still in the air waiting for a bug to go underwater to catch a fish. In fact Hill is strangely enough a huge part to the success of the film by sticking to his two-dimensional profile with just the best bits of subversion: looking at his eyes one can't always tell whether he's being serious, crazy, or just plain joking around, like in the saloon. He wouldn't work as the typical bad-ass, stoic Leone anti-hero/villain, but Valerii understands how to handle his abilities. Same goes for Fonda, only he doesn't have to go too far to be effective: all he needs to do is to keep a silence going, a look that says everything that needs to be said (albeit he lays it on heavy in the final letter, something that definitely would not be in a typical Leone film).

And yet even with all of Valerii's kidding moments and high-spirits (watch out little guy on stilts!), there is some genuine artistry at work too, as when the Wild Bunch is seen coming ahead through the desert (the wide-reaching over-head angle is the best shot in the film), and it reveals that there could be some worth in checking out other obscurer efforts of his. As it stands, I could watch it anytime it's on TV, if only as a pick-me-up if it's a soggy day. For fans of the western it is a must-see, if only for the fun of it all, and to get a pure in-joke regarding Sam Peckinpah.