Saturday, May 7, 2011

1973 - MY NAME IS NOBODY, "Sergio Leone presents" the end of the spaghetti western


As the glory days (if there ever were glory days) of the spaghetti western came to an end, Sergio Leone produced a film about an aging gunfighter being forced by a goofball admirer of his to leave his mark on western history by killing a gang of outlaws.


Sergio Leone directed a couple of the action scenes in particular the large scale shoot out at the end.  He hired Henry Fonda to play the old gunfighter and Italian slapstick comedian Terence Hill aka Mario Girotti to play the goofball.  The cast is a mixture of American character actors and the usual bunch of dubbed Italians.

Ennio Morricone's score is a deliberate parody of an Ennio Morricone score and adds to the fun in the film.


The credited director Tonino Valerii had been an assistant to Leone on the "dollars" films, but this is a Leone production all the way with large scale production values and his elaborate action scenes mixed up this time with the usual goofy slapsticky humor found in the Terence Hill films only on a larger scale.


Henry Fonda is actually kind of poignant as the old gunfighter, it's now been pointed out that this was his final western. It's also his last decent role in a film before he permanently moved into smaller character parts.  Fonda uses his same easy going style in this film that had worked successfully for him throughout his career.  Terence Hill is Terence Hill.

117 minutes.

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