My Name Is Nobody (Il Mio nome e Nessuno): the half-century anniversary of the iconic spaghetti Western

My Name Is Nobody. This picture by Tonino Valeria, which was released on the big screen in the pre-Christmas days of 1973, can be safely called an excellent postscript to the films of the great reformer of the western genre Sergio Leone. The author of the “dollar trilogy” himself gave the idea to create a tape, brilliantly translated by Ernesto Gastaldi into the script of a nostalgic comedy. However, Leone did not limit himself to the fact that the credits are defined as the “author of the idea.” Sergio personally supervised the shooting of the film and even directed several scenes. However, by that time he had already outgrown the genre of day labor with his talent, using the form of a western to create epic tragedies comparable to ancient Greek models: “Once upon a Time in the Wild West” (“C’era una volta il West”, 1968) and “For a Handful of dynamite” (“Giù la testa”, 1971) – one of the most powerful conceptualizations of the fate of violence and cruelty of any revolution in world cinema.

Already at the very beginning of “My Name Is Nobody,” the contrast of the two main characters is obvious to the audience – tired of the burden of imposing the law where almost everything is decided by bribery and violence, Sheriff Jack Beauregard and inexhaustibly fabulous optimism and sharpness of a young merry fellow hiding his name under the nickname Nobody. And if the sheriff is only concerned with catching the steamer that will take him to the blessed abode of civilization – Europe, then his counterpart, with a pseudonym borrowed from Odysseus, and with a face super-popular after the success of the comedy dilogy about the Trinity by Terence Hill, is obsessed only with the fan whim to register his idol in the history textbook. And for this, Jack Beauregard must defeat a Wild Gang. Perhaps this plot touchstone contained the idea of Sergio Leone, developed into a comedy western wonderfully shot by two outstanding film directors at once (Armando Nannuzzi and Giuseppe Ruzzolini). After all, the “Wild Gang” was invented and captured on the screen by another major revisionist of the Western genre in the sixties – Sam Peckinpah. The name of the creator of this successful and over-the-top screen cruelty film is unexpectedly played out in a scene at the cemetery, when No One reads “Sam Peckinpah” on one of the graves, accompanying him with an ironic remark: “a beautiful name in the Navajo language.”

For Tonino Valeria, who shot the film, this is not the first Western he shot, it turned out to be the most successful in his film career. The director managed to keep up the measure, partly imitating the tapes of Sergio Leone in their brutality, but at the same time to beat the comedic aura of Mario Girotti, who became known to fans of westerns around the world under his screen name “Terence Hill”. But, of course, the most remarkable role in this tape was played by the great American actor Henry Fonda. The hero he embodied on the screen, with the surname of a famous confederate general during the American Civil War, is not at all a knight without fear and reproach. In a sense, he is a “slave of honor” who, in order to keep his reputation untainted, decides to escape from the field of daily and doomed to defeat battle with injustice in a quiet and law-abiding Old World. Jack Beauregard lost faith in people. That’s why it’s hard for him to understand the next Nobody on his heels. In the yard of 1899, the century is coming to an end, in which the power of the colt could establish the law on the lands of the frontier. Now the pure world has won a complete victory, and Sheriff Beauregard dreams only of peace.

That’s just No One is going to just let the hero of his childhood go home, constantly reminding him at meetings about the exploits that he once did by force of arms and his skill. Nobody even takes his nickname as a provoking reminder after the barber, saved from death by the sheriff, answers his son’s question: “Is there anyone who shoots faster than him [Beauregard]? – “Nobody”!”. And, let’s give ourselves a spoiler hint, the character of Terence Hill will still achieve the realization of a dream – a duel of his idol with a Wild gang of one and a half hundred well-armed horsemen.

Comedy episodes related to the participation of No One in them are scattered throughout the tape. Especially excellent are the scene of the marksmanship contest in the saloon (it is believed that it was staged directly by Sergio Leone) and the duel of Nobody with local thugs in the mirror labyrinths of the fun room.

Another point that distinguishes this tape from an infinite number of epigon creations (and from the beginning of the 1960s to the end of the 1970s, more than 600 spaghetti westerns were produced by European film studios alone) is the personalization of almost every character of the second or even third plan. They are absolutely not formulaic, and everyone, even if he is a six, seems to be teleported to the screen from those years and places far away from us.

Well, the nostalgic flavor of this comedic western, remarkably emphasized by the music of the inimitable Ennio Morricone, can be felt both in the perfectly written dialogues of the characters and in the final letter of instruction from the life-wise sheriff to his careless replacement.

“Dear Nobody! Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person. …You often said that my life was hanging by a thread. Maybe so, but I’m afraid your life is hanging in the balance now. But there are also many who want to cut this hair, however, you probably live by it. There is one big difference between us: I’ve always tried to avoid trouble, and you seem to be looking for it all the time…”

If you have not yet happened to get acquainted with this wonderful mood-charging western, which Terence Hill himself called his favorite movie, then this can be fixed right now. After all, a true classic does not age even half a century later!