My Name is Nobody

"You shine like the door of a whorehouse"

My Name is Nobody is a spaghetti western produced by the great and iconic director Sergio Leone. Leone was famous for starting the spaghetti western genre with A Fistful of Dollars, a hugely influential film that spawned hundreds of knockoffs. In the short amount of time that passed between A Fistful of Dollars and My Name is Nobody, the spaghetti western's cheap and Italian origins meant that it had morphed mostly into a comedy genre. Bud Spencer and Terence Hill became the genre's go-to guys; a comedic Italian duo whose real names were Carlo and Mario. Anyway, Sergio Leone noted the genre's gradual transformation into a deliberate laughing stock and decided to finance his own spaghetti western comedy, as if he was showing all the bozos how it should be done. Leone even stepped in and directed at least two of the film's major sequences, though he didn't commit himself fully to directing the entire production. He enlisted Henry Fonda (who had worked with him previously) to add a touch of class to the proceedings and also called upon the genre's great star, Terence Hill, to co-star.

The 'Nobody' of the title is played by Hill, who spends most of the film goofing off and stalking his personal hero, Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda). Beauregard is an ageing gunfighter with a reputation for being the quickest draw in the west, but his reputation attracts a lot of trouble. He wants nothing more than to leave America for a peaceful retirement in Europe but Nobody wants him to go out in a blaze of glory against the Wild Bunch, a huge gang of outlaws who were responsible for killing Beauregard's brother. Beauregard takes a nihilistic view of his brother's death... he's old and he's tired, and he doesn't want to become a legend. He thinks the cost of mythology (being his life) is too high a price. Despite this, Nobody tries to manipulate both Beauregard and the events around them in order to force a glorious last stand.

I have to admit that I just don't get the appeal of 'comedy' spaghetti westerns. The silliness didn't really amuse me, the name of Hill's character leads to a lot of awful puns, and the cartoonish slapstick doesn't win the film any favours. If this film had taken itself seriously it probably would've been a classic. The dramatic moments, coupled with a typically magical and offbeat score by Ennio Morricone, are up there with the best of Leone's more 'serious' work. It could've been a lot shorter and sharper too, there's just too much faffing about in the middle, though I will at least say that there's a few genuinely witty moments in the dialogue (usually courtesy of Fonda).

Henry Fonda takes it all as seriously as it deserves to be taken. Under the circumstances he gives a pretty good performance as the legendary Jack Beauregard, though it's nowhere as memorable as his previous work for Leone as as the cold-blooded Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West. By contrast, Terence Hill's characterisation borders on the clownish, he plays it smart-arsed and loose, thumbing his nose at the stereotypical western tough guy. He isn't exactly awful, but it's safe to say that he's an acquired taste.

If you're a fan of films like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West then you should probably still watch this film. Highlights include the opening sequence in the barber shop (one of the Leone-directed bits), the bit where Beauregard first shoots a hole in Nobody's hat, and the point when Beauregard makes his inevitable decision to 'go out in style'. There's also some interesting stuff about the death of the old west, with a commentary on the rise of organised violence and how this made it harder for outlaws to tell who their friends and enemies were. In a way this subtext makes My Name is Nobody the missing link between Leone's westerns and his exploration of gangster culture in Once Upon a Time in America.

Here's some more quotes...

"If the risk is little, the reward is little"

"I'd rather it was my fault I got shot than your fault I didn't"

"Son, let me give you a little advice. You start admiring someone, pretty soon you're envious so you start showing off. Taking chances. Before you know it, you're dead"
"Well, it aint good for some folks to live too long"

DIRECTOR: Tonino Valerii, Sergio Leone
WRITER/SOURCE: Sergio Leone, Fulvio Morsella and Ernesto Gastaldi
KEY ACTORS: Henry Fonda, Terence Hill, Jean Martin, Geoffrey Lewis, R. G. Armstrong

RELATED TEXTS
- Sergio Leone later co-directed A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe, another comedy spaghetti western starring Terence Hill as virtually the same character he played in My Name is Nobody. The film is very poorly regarded and hard to track down.
- Leone's previous westerns were A Fistful of Dynamite, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Good The Bad and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More and A Fistful of Dollars.
- As mentioned in the review above, some of the concepts regarding organised crime dovetail into the gangster setting of Leone's final film, Once Upon a Time in America.
- Terence Hill's most famous film is probably My Name is Trinity.
- The plot of this film is similar to several other westerns, including The Gunfighter and The Shootist.