All You Can Eat Spaghetti

I love spaghetti westerns. I could watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly once a week for the rest of my life and never get sick of it. Aaah, the Italians . . . America churned out hundreds of clean-shaven, Injun-fightin' John Wayne/Roy Rogers flicks for years; movies where the good and the bad could be determined by their color coding. It took foreigners - the Italians - to finally end this reign of bolo ties and spangled epaulets, to give the world a taste of what the cowboys were really all about. The American West was a snake's nest of lawless, rugged, cagey men. The towns were mud-covered dumps. Personal (and dental) hygiene were not high priorities. The spaghetti westerns effectively killed the image of slick-haired, square-jawed Christians singing around a campfire and gave us a vision that was closer to the truth.

I love laser discs. Beautiful, clear image. Digital stereo sound. A laser disc can make even my tiny NYC apartment seem more like a theater (especially when I turn down the lights, rub some melted butter under my nose, have my gigantic neighbor come over and obstruct my view, and flush twenty dollars down the toilet).

I love the Japanese. While Americans hem and haw over new technology, the Japanese hop in and go gung-ho. Laser disc players hit the market, the Japanese start cranking out discs. They've probably released every movie ever made onto disc - twice. Looking for an uncut, widescreen copy of Assault of the Killer Bimbos? Odds are, there's a Japanese laser disc floating around somewhere. With a gatefold sleeve and essay booklet. That's another thing I love about the Japanese. They treat every film, no matter how cheesy, as if it were a special edition of a multiple Oscar winner.

Given the above paragraphs, you can imagine my amazement, my ecstasy, my overwhelming joy when I found the Japanese Import LD of one of the greatest spaghetti westerns ever made, My Name is Nobody.

There are a lot of things that I love. The high price of import discs isn't one of them. Fortunately, my loving parents happened to be visiting the city (with their lovely credit card in hand) . . . Thanks, guys!

Anyway, My Name is Nobody stars Henry Fonda as Jack Beauregard, an aging gunfighter with a legendary reputation and a price on his head. All he wants to do is get out of the country so that he can live the rest of his life in peace. But a character named Nobody - an incredible and charismatic Terence Hill - won’t let Beauregard go until he has his defining moment of glory - a showdown with the 150 member "wild bunch." I always thought of Henry Fonda as the grumpy old codger from On Golden Pond. Seeing My Name is Nobody gives me a fresh perspective on Mr. Fonda.

But Terence Hill is the real reason to watch My Name is Nobody. A popular Italian star with some 60-odd films under his belt, Hill is the essence of filmic cool. As Nobody, he has a Jackie Chan-like goofy charm, but it’s all an act so that people will underestimate him. By turns naive and extremely crafty, Nobody is the fastest gun ever captured on film (one recurring gag is when he draws the bad guy’s gun, slaps him in the face, and replaces the gun before the goon can do anything about it). Hill is an outstanding actor that deserves a lot more recognition than he gets. He oozes quintessential casual coolness.

Produced by Sergio Leone, My Name is Nobody is epic in scope and has a plot that meanders here and there but still comes together in a rousing, heartfelt climax. Lush photography, great acting all the way around (despite the fact that it’s dubbed!) , and a classic early 70s soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. The basic premise of Nobody - what happens when the west becomes modernized? What is to become of a gunfighter with honor once honor is no longer valued? How does a legend age gracefully? - were all central themes of the Academy Award-winning Unforgiven. But My Name is Nobody didn't win any awards and it has a much more clever and satisfactory resolution.

There's something about the best spaghetti westerns that reminds me of Hong Kong films. Comedy and drama side by side, quietly meditative scenes followed by outrageous action, and heroes with superhuman abilities. "Nobody" has gun-fu prowess that would equal the kung-fu of Bruce Lee.

My Name is Nobody is one of my all-time favorite films. And although I viewed the import laser disc for review, most video stores carry the American pan and scan version. It does have Henry Fonda in it, after all. Terence Hill went on to star in two "sequels," They Call Me Trinity and Trinity is Still My Name While more difficult to find than MNIN, they are both excellent and worth the effort to hunt down.