My Name Is Nobody

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

My Name Is Nobody (1973) is an Affectionate Parody of the Spaghetti Western, originally released in Italy as Il mio nome è Nessuno and starring Henry Fonda as an aging, legendary gunslinger named Jack Beauregard who wants nothing more than to retire in peace, and Terence Hill as "Nobody", a man who idolized Beauregard and wants to see him die in a blaze of glory fighting singlehanded against the infamous Wild Bunch.


Tropes used in My Name Is Nobody include:
  • Affectionate Parody: By this point, the spaghetti western had become a parody of itself. Sergio Leone and his team wanted to be the ones to make the ultimate "joke" version of the genre.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Beauregard witnesses the Wild Bunch loading dynamite into their flashy saddle bags, exact replicas of Nobody's, which he comments can be seen for miles. Later, he uses this to kill at least half of the massive gang.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Keeping a barber honest by putting a gun/finger up his anus.
  • Curb Stomp Battle: Occurs anytime either Nobody or Jack draw a gun. Especially when Jack fights the 150 strong Wild Bunch.
  • Fastest Gun in the West: Nobody is faster than Jack although that is never actually tested since the gunfight is a fake.
  • Good Old Ways: Subverted, Jack cares little for avenging family, much to Nobody's chagrin.
  • Hall of Mirrors: Nobody lures a pair of mooks in such a hall, to better harass them.
  • Hat Damage: Parodied endlessly, at one point a character takes hold of his hat because he realizes someone's intent to shoot it off. The hat still gets a bullethole.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: Jack is capable of shooting Nobody's hat 4 times from the hip, sending each bullet through the same hole. Made even more impressive when see a first person view from Jack, whose advancing age renders Nobody little more than a hazy outline in his vision.
  • In the Back: Averted, since Nobody is just that good.

Nobody: It ain't nice to shoot somebody in the back. *Slap*

  • Invoked Trope: Nobody's M.O. It's not enough for an old west hero to just retire and live peacefully in Europe somewhere. He has to leave in style, leave an unmissable mark on the west for people to remember him and then be seen to die ironically and leave a snappy epitaph.
  • Juggling Loaded Guns: The main characters go beyond not using proper gun safety, to firing guns in crowded rooms whilst very intoxicated and using bullets to play pool. All of this is played for laughs.
  • Mundane Utility: Showy gunplay to make three men put their hands up, so they catch the roof before it falls on them.
  • No Name Given: Nobody.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Nobody isn't as naiive as he acts, although his idealism and hero-worship are absolutely genuine.
  • Retirony: The premise of the story is that Jack wants to retire. Nobody helps him fake his death in a gunfight since he believes this trope to be a law of nature.