My Name Is Nobody

There were no DVD players when I was a kid. We had one of those old top loading VHS machines. The remote control was not cordless as they are now, but was attached with a long wire. I remember my dad and I would sit in the living room with the lights out watching westerns on TV. We didnt have the money to go buy movies so we would record our westerns off of the TV. Unfortunately, when you try to record movies off of the TV you are also recording all of the commercials. Dad decided that he did not want to record commercials so it became my job to hold this remote control in my hand through the whole movie and hit the pause button before and after every commercial. This was the scenario as I watched "My Name Is Nobody" for the very first time.

I laughed out loud at the performance given by Terence Hill as he portrayed "Nobody". He appears to unwittingly avoid all kinds of disaster until you catch a little gleam in his eyes which lets the audience know there is more going on up stairs than meets the eye. One of my favorite scenes in this movie is one in which a seemingly drunken "Nobody" uses his super fast reflexes to slap a would be assassin into submission without ever pulling his own pistol.

While Terence Hill plays the quirky "Nobody", Henry Fonda plays it straight as an old gun fighter named Jack Beauregard who knows his time is coming to an end. He wants to put his guns down and have a normal life, but alas, there is always someone wanting to prove he is faster. He plays it cool, but he shows an underlying uncertainty as to who he can trust. He refuses "Nobody's" offer to help him go out in a blaze of glory until the end when, at "Nobody's" urging, he takes on the entire Wild Bunch. That is another of my favorite scenes: The Wild Bunch have saddle bags full of dynamite. Each saddle bag has a silver star sequin which glints in the bright sunlight. Beauregard takes aim at these silver sequins and with each shot a horse and rider are blown to kingdom come.

I also love the soundtrack to this film as well. It was scored by Morricone who scored many of these Sergio Leone films. I have the DVD of this movie and it has an option to play the score by itself. I have always enjoyed this music even as a kid.

"My Name is Nobody" has long been one of my all time favorites in the Spaghetti western genre. I highly reccommend you check it out for yourself.

FYI: I never could pause the VCR fast enough catch all the commercials.

Cap'n Ron