If The Ridiculous Six wasn’t your cup of tea, then how ’bout a different western comedy?
The year before Blazing Saddles released, the spaghetti western was dead. Sergio Leone had already made what many consider to be the best western, period, and his assistant director on the first two Dollar films, Tonino Valerii, had gone on to direct Day of Anger (I plan to feature the Blu-Ray edition when I get my hands on it) which was another fine example of the genre.
So Leone did what few directors would do: he arranged to have Valerii direct a send-up of the films they helped define. Also in on the joke is Ennio Morricone, whose wonderfully illogical score plays like a parody of his previous works. You get the feeling these guys weren’t mourning the death of the spaghetti western, but merrily digging the grave.
Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) sits down for a shave at the local barbershop. The man behind the razor intends to slit his throat. As the blade inches towards Jack’s jugular, his pistol slides out from underneath his gown. He presses the barrel against the man’s crotch and tells the would-be assassin, in his velvety, trademark voice: no funny business.
The rest of the gang ambush Jack, who guns ’em down with his lightning reflexes. Jack’s a bit of a legend around these parts, which means he frequently has to dispatch men who’ve come to kill him. They all want to go down in history as the men who defeated the great Jack Beauregard. Meanwhile, Jack just dreams of quietly retiring to Europe.
In the aftermath of his latest shootout, a bystander asks, “Is there anyone faster?” The reply: “Nobody.”
Enter Nobody, a childlike wanderer played by Terence Hill (They Call Me Trinity, Django Prepare the Coffin). Three bad guys try to dupe him into delivering a booby trapped picnic basket to Jack and he knowingly agrees. When the aging gunslinger asks Nobody what’s in the basket, Nobody says, “Oh, this? I reckon it’s a bomb.” To which Jack replies, “I reckon you’re right.” Nobody tosses the basket back to the bad guys and yells, “He didn’t want it!” and the basket explodes.
Meanwhile, a group of bandits known as the Wild Bunch (an intentional reference to Sam Peckinpah, whose name also appears on a grave marker) are laundering stolen gold by passing it off as the production of a dummy mining operation. Although Jack assumes Nobody is just another gunslinger who’s come to kill him for a shot at fame, Nobody reveals that he idolizes gunslingers and wants Jack to take on the Wild Bunch single-handedly. That way Jack’s name can go down in the history books.
I’m not sure if a spaghetti western should be called cute, but My Name is Nobody is pretty damn cute. For the most part it works. Like Two Mules for Sister Sara, which I featured a few weeks ago, it’s not exactly what I’d call a classic, but it’s far from being a stinker and a helluva lot more memorable than most movies. Then again, maybe it’s only memorable because we’ve seen some of these scenes a hundred times before.
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