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Great little movie, if you can call a film starring Henry Fonda and produced by Sergio Leone little.

Mixing end-of-the-west western and parody, the film stars Fonda as an aging gunfighter and Terence Hill (!) as his admirer. All Fonda wants is to settle some scores and retire, but loud-mouth, reckless Hill gets constantly in his way and taunts him to erradicate the local band. A band with 150 members.

The film worsks amazingly well. I've never been a fan of Hill's childish humour, but here it helps to settle the tone, much more amiable and gentle than in most spaguetti westerns, and there's considerable juice in Fonda's attitude and reluctancy of entering "History books" as Hill often says.

A must see, both for spaguetti western fans (it's the last of their kind, or so critics say) and regular western followers, since this was Henry Fonda's last western. And for good reasons, as this is a true farewell role.

(http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6549/snapshot20060828004657fu0.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)

Goodbye, Frank. You'll be missed.

Neville it sounds like you enjoyed this one. Truely one of my favorites of all time. As a kid I only liked Westerns that involved the Cavalry and didn't care much for the individual gunslinger type films, so back at the time I hadn't viewed a Leone film until MY NAME IS NOBODY came on TV which became unknowingly my intro these type films and Morricone music. To me MY NAME IS NOBODY is and was during my youth an original kind of film, so you can imagine the impression this whimsical Western left on me.

Besides that the whole idea of someone named "Nobody" helping an old gunslinger become a true legend was something else. I don't want to ruin the ending so I'll stop by saying this is a great film to either start or end your Spaghetti Western (or any Western) viewing.

(http://www.hollywoodteenmovies.com/MyNameIsNobodyArtwork.jpg)

I expressed a lot of my love and memories for this film over in "The Professionals" thread, but I was so glad to get it on DVD and finally see it in widescreen. My VHS copy was an annoying fullscreen faded print with a slight sickly green tint to it. Plus the credits on the box were for the sequel featuring Patrick McGoohan and Miou-Miou and Klaus Kinski none of whom are in this film.

This film always tickles me with Nobody's cavalier attitude mixed with his child-like hero worship of Beauregard. His character is only a minor variation on Trinity, but Nobody seems to be culivating an air of indifference and near incompetence to fool opponents, where Trinity always comes across just as lazy as he appears, little concerned with anything other than his next large plate of beans. Nobody during the bar room contest seems to be putting on a show knowing he can win easily, but acting like he's worried or drunker than he is to keep it interesting. Nobody in the funhouse is so cunning, quick, and efficient that the way he outclasses his foes is almost cruel. Beauregard says it himself, with his "Your kind always has to have an audience," line.

As I said, I'm not much into Terence Hill, although I did watch tons of his films with Bud Spencer when i was a kid, so, yeah, this film was a pleasant surprise all the way. Some of the "comedy" scenes with Hill, such as the bar game or the funhouse ran a bit too long for me, but the more serious parts and his scenes with Fonda more than compensate.

I also liked the tone, which is far more pleasant than usual for a film of this genre.

I like the scene with him sitting in the street on the chair, the way he slides his leg over the chair while using his pistol as the axis to turn on, just looks so smooth and cool, even if it is unsafe gun handling.

I've seen next to nothing of Hill's non-westerns with or without Bud Spenser. I found few of their films even back in good old days of mom and pop video stores stocking odd stuff. I know they were huge stars in Europe even after westerns fade from popularity, especially with kids. Were their films that widespread in Europe?

Apparently "Superfuzz" played fairly widely in the USA when I was a kid, since it turns up in "What was this film?" and "Favorite films from your childhood" threads quite often on various message boards. Still haven't seen it. I did see "March or Die" finally, was disappointed, and I usually like Foreign Legion films. Saw part of "Mr. Billion" once, remember next to nothing.

Yaddo 42 Wrote:
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>
> I've seen next to nothing of Hill's non-westerns
> with or without Bud Spenser. I found few of their
> films even back in good old days of mom and pop
> video stores stocking odd stuff. I know they were
> huge stars in Europe even after westerns fade from
> popularity, especially with kids. Were their films
> that widespread in Europe?
>

Back in the 80s, they were the big thing in kids movies... although I don't know if that was the intention or just a side effect. I remember like a dozen titles I have watched in part or seen advertised. They were comedies with lots of fistfights a la Trinity, but with different, often modern settings. Hill would always play the trickster, wanting something only Spencer, with his superior brute force, could help him to obtain, and he would trick him into his schemes and become buddies along the way. My favourites were "Y si no, nos enfadamos" and "También los ángeles comen judías", the latter with Giuliano Gemma playing a Hill-esque part.

lol, I loved that movie.

Oh, remember those Bud Spencer / Terence Hill titles I mentioned? The English titles are "Watch Out, We're Mad" and "Even Angels Eat Beans". The first one is one of the funniest films of the duo, as they both pick on a local mobster who ruined their buggy, and the second is a gangster film parody, with Giuliano Gemma playing a Terence Hill-like role and Spencer playing a wrestler. They both get in trouble with the local "family", as one could expect.

BTW, I posted another message a few days ago commenting Sergio Corbucci's "Compañeros". I was surprised it got zero responses, so I checked and it turned out I had written the foreign title instead. Now it's fixed, if anybody wants to comment on that other film any feedback is welcome.

I've heard the title "Watch Out, We're Mad" and read some plot summaries of their other films at IMDB. Even found a site once displaying lobby posters of their films from that time.

I read your "Companeros" post, but since I haven't seen it I had nothing really to add. I want to explore more of the "Mexican and a Gringo" subgenre of spaghetti westerns. I've liked the ones I've seen, which are basically "Duck You Sucker!" and "Long Live Your Death". I gotta join Netflix.

Of those types of westerns, my favorite so far is "Tepepa", although you'll only find zone 2 DVDs in the USA. The plot is quite similar to "A bullet for the general", but found it to be much better film. Imagine, it even has Orson Welles in a juicy supporting role.

This is one of my all-time favorite westerns. A mix of gunslinger western and an almost fairytale storytelling style. It has the atmosphere and direction inherent in the best of Spaghetti Westerns while having two very amiable characters in Jack Bouregard and Nobody. I would like to see the uncut version someday (it is supposedly 20 minutes longer than the version I have).

I have, at much scoffing, suggested to some friends of mine that the anime character in the Trigun series, and the comic, was loosely based on the character of 'Nobody' from this film. Anybody else believe that to be the case.

Menard Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This is one of my all-time favorite westerns. A
> mix of gunslinger western and an almost fairytale
> storytelling style. It has the atmosphere and
> direction inherent in the best of Spaghetti
> Westerns while having two very amiable characters
> in Jack Bouregard and Nobody. I would like to see
> the uncut version someday (it is supposedly 20
> minutes longer than the version I have).

According to the IMDB, all versions should clock around 115 / 112 minutes. My version was 112', the difference with the American prints probably being just NTSC to PAL transfer. Can't imagine what could they cut, as it only has some minor swearing and the violence is tame.

No idea if Trigun is based on "Nobody", but he reminds me of Trinity more. At least during the earlier episodes when that series was lighter in tone and before Vash the Stampede spent half of every episode crying, screaming, and having his limbs transform.

I would say that anime series like Trigun, Comboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, and Desert Punk are definitely heavily influenced by spaghetti westerns in general and the more comic ones in particular.

The more I think of it, the more the Namek segment of "Dragon Ball Z" reminds me of an spaguetti western. Even the music, mixing synths with electric guitar sort of reminds me of Morricone's "Man with an armonica".

I forget where I had read it, but it was my understanding that the original Italian release, theatrical, came in at 130 minutes. There are several movies which have been cut for U.S. release for the purpose of getting it under 2 hours rather than for any content. The version I have is about 115 minutes and has the urinal scene which was cut from some prints.

The main reason why I thought that Vash was closer to Hill's Nobody rather than Trinity is that Nobody goes to lengths not to shoot anybody, where Trinity does actually shoot others.