A half-decade later, Fonda re-teamed with Leone, who this time served as producer for My Name Is Nobody. Although a far less serious film, it's arguably more entertaining — a pure delight. See if you don't agree, now that the 1973 film gallops out of the sunrise and onto Blu-ray.
Fonda's Jack Beauregard is an aging gunfighter aiming for retirement. He's worshipped by a young drifter named Nobody (Terence Hill, Super Fuzz) whose big, dumb grin and "aw, shucks" exterior belies the equally gifted sharpshooter within.
Nobody would like to see his idol earn his rightful place in the history books, and befriends him to do just that. Too bad Nobody's plan amounts to a suicide mission: for Beauregard to take down The Wild Bunch, consisting of "150 pure-bred sons of bitches on horseback," all at once.
Sounds grim, but My Name Is Nobody is built with as much levity as lead. With Fonda as the straight man to Hill's mild-mannered clown of a cowboy, it's very funny and full of inventive sequences well-staged by director Tonino Valerii (My Dear Killer), including a shoot-out in a carnival funhouse. On a more serious note, the ticking-clock opening is a master class in tension-building.
For a disc that RLJ Entertainment has billed as a "40th Anniversary Edition," the Blu-ray is woefully short on commemorative extras — as in none, not even a trailer. Viewers can create their own, kinda, simply by letting the menu loop, allowing Ennio Morricone's theme to play until it sticks in your craw. Like all magnificent Morricone scores, it will. And like all good spaghetti Westerns, so shall My Name Is Nobody. —Rod Lott
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