Lost Treasures
My Name is Nobody (1973)
Directed by Tonino Valerii
"Nobody, but 'Nobody', knows the trouble he's in!" So boasts the goofy, crazy-cool tag line of the funniest Italian spaghetti western in cinema history. It's all in good old-fashioned-action-full-sense-o-rama (thanks Fancis) shootout-foolishness that is "My Name is Nobody" (1973). Well folks, thanks for joining me on the one year anniversary issue of "HO" (FFKAMM). It's been real. Real... something. Okay enough bullshit. The year is 1899 and the end of the romantic grand era that is the Old West is dying quickly. Henry Fonda, in the last of his 15 westerns, is Jack Beauregard an aging shootist who is planning a quiet retirement and escape from the West that he partially created before it all vanishes. Sharpen up them there spurs part-ner. To this day I have not been able to fully understand the convoluted plot but who gives a shit. Here we go:
"Il Mio Nome E Nessuno" was an Italian, German and French co-production shot entirely in Spain with one of the worst over-dubbing jobs ever executed in the annals of motion pictures.
The tale opens in a classic Sergio Leone-stylized scene (although he is un-credited as the director) in a barber shop with three gunmen coming from the hills to knock off the aging gunfighter, Jack Beauregard. What they underestimate is his savvy and excellence as a gunslinger. There may be three sentences in the first ten minutes. The soundtrack is another timeless Ennio Morricone endeavor with whistling and a hypnotic ticking clock. Fonda's failing eyesight and need for spectacles is a nice little touch to contrast the age differences with Nobody (Terrance Hill). They meet before the end of the opening credits. So sets up the young up-and-coming showy speed-demon jokester Nobody and the slow but sure Beauregard. Beauregard's not fancy but he's the best at what he does... he kills people. Hill plays a ridiculous, over-the-top Jackie Chan-esque character that fancies himself the next great gunfighter. It is hard to tell whether Nobody wants to worship his hero or kill him.
Beauregard has seventeen days to come up with $500.00 to reserve a spot on the ship, the Sundowner, which will take him to Europe and bring to a close his life in the Wild West. A ridiculous plot point but its the only thing that creates a desire to get something done by a specific time thus giving the movie "suspense". Then there's the wealthy miner, Sullivan (Jean Martin) who killed Fonda's brother over an argument about gold. Beauregard vows to avenge his brother's murder. So Sullivan hires a hit squad of one hundred and fifty men called the Wild Bunch to kill Beauregard. These goons are never quite seen and always arrive in long slow-motion dusty shots to the swells of a very bizarre version of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" played on kazoos. Wow!... this dude's got balls. I did mention this picture is utterly ludicrous, right?
The movie centers on Nobody who wanders around from town to town following Beauregard, trying to convince him to take on the Wild Bunch before he leaves and send his legend into mythic proportions. Okay, more of the perplexing story: Nobody is an excellent gunman as well. The ten-minute drinking contest he has with Squirrel is insane and when the hysterically fast motion photography kicks in I thought I was watching some 70's karate flick. One of the most preposterous moments is when Nobody and Beauregard search for his brother's grave at a Navaho cemetery and Nobody reads off a few burial markers including "Sam Peckinpah". Wacky and wonderful.
Conveniently the circus comes to town the same day Nobody does. A perfect pairing as he roams the streets doing his Robin Hood impression to help the down-trodden and abused townspeople. The high stakes Sullivan pays Nobody $4000.00 to kill Beauregard. He stiffs the guy after a great town square "shootout" and becomes the number two man on Sullivan's list. What he does with the 4K I don't know. If he'd give 500 to Fonda the movie would be over. There's a House of Mirrors scene straight out of "Lady from Shanghai" and Nobody's soliloquy about the little birdie and the cow pie brings a tear to my eye every time. Confused yet? Eventually Nobody convinces the ego-driven killer in Beauregard to take on the Wild Bunch all alone and go down in history... hold on tight!
The subtext of "My Name is Nobody" feels like a referendum on not only the Old West meeting the turn-of-the-century but also a celebration of the Western in cinema lore that had been shoved aside at that time for more popular fare. The running joke of the name "Nobody" can wear on you after awhile and the movie feels like it has about three endings. There are at least three versions floating around ranging from 115 to 130 minutes long. The pan-and-scan is horrendous! Avoid this picture on television, they destroy it. One final note: Watch for the visual gag on the end tombstone and as far as the last shot of the film that rolls over the credits is concerned, I won’t even touch it. Let me put it this way, they can not show the final shot when they air "My Name is Nobody" on regular television.
Guido Sanchez -- copyright 1999