1977 - MR BILLION, the American film debut for Terence Hill

This should have been a slam dunk for director Jonathan Kaplan.  The Italian actor Terence Hill (aka Mario Girotti) made his American debut in this extremely lightweight action comedy.  The plot is very simple.  Hill has inherited millions of dollars and must travel to Los Angles from Italy to receive it in three days or else he forfeits it.  Into the picture comes crooked Jackie Gleason who is determined to cheat him out of his inheritance.  The film is a series of chases across the continental United States.

The cast is fairly decent.  Scene stealer Jackie Gleason does his amusing stuff and really he is about the only reason to sit through this film..  Valerie Perrine is the woman hired by Gleason to stop Hill but falls in love with him instead.  Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong and Dick Miller show up, had they been given decent material to work with this group would have been entertaining.

 

The problem is that the script is not very clever or funny. In Italy Terence Hill usually played a rather lovable con man type.  In Mr Billion the writers and producers have decided to make him the innocent abroad, a role that does not suit him. And let’s face it audiences probably missed seeing him with partner Bud Spencer (aka Carlo Pedersoli).   The film stumbles from one uninteresting chase scene to another and really none of these scenes are particularity exciting or funny.

This film was a critical and commercial flop.  It sent Terence Hill back to Italy where he continued to make the entertaining slap sticky kind of comedies with his partner Bud Spencer that audiences enjoyed seeing him him.

The film was written by Ken Friedman and Jonathan Kaplan, the running time is 89 minutes