A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe

I'd never heard of this one until I stumbled across it on DVD (under the title 'A Genius, Two Partners And A Dupe'). I was intrigued because it was directed by Damiano Damiani who made one of the very best non-Leone spaghetti westerns 'A Bullet For The General', and was produced (and many say co-directed) by Sergio Leone himself. I believe this was the last western Leone was involved with, and one of the very last spaghetti westerns ever made. The eclectic cast was another attraction. Terence "My Name Is Nobody" Hill, Miou-Miou, Patrick "The Prisoner" McGoohan and the legendary Klaus Kinski... Mmmm, very interesting! Well after sitting through this crap I now know why it's so obscure. It sucks. In almost every way. I have no idea of Leone's involvement, but the striking opening sequence looks like it might have been directed by him. Too bad it's all downhill from there! This was retitled to try and sell it as a sequel to 'My Name Is Nobody'. Hill actually plays a different character and the connection between the two is tenuous at best. BUT it is in a similar vein to many of Hill's comedy westerns, or should I say "so-called comedy" westerns? I didn't get one laugh out of it. It's really hard to imagine a serious director like Damiani making slapstick rubbish like this. The awful dubbing doesn't help things either. Regarding the supporting cast, the bad news is Kinski. He only had a small role in 'A Bullet For The General', but in this one it's even less. Basically Kinski has a two scene cameo at the beginning of the movie, and that's it. I love watching Kinski but anyone renting this movie just to see him should be warned. The good news is McGoohan. He has a much more substantial role and is quite good. Unfortunately he's surrounded by actors hamming it up and a lousy script. If the movie hadn't have played it for laughs, had someone other than Hill as the star (say Franco Nero) and more Kinski it might have been good. As it is only rabid Leone fans will want to bother watching it. Easily the poorest spaghetti western I've ever seen. Avoid.

This Terence Hill film is quite strange!Supposed to be a sequel to My Name Is Nobody,it's a spoof on the old west!Not very family friendly,it has it's good parts!Terence Hill really makes the movie.It would have been better if his partner Bud Spencer starred with him.The first scene is directed by the great Sergio Leone.What's wrong with it is not the plot(a great plot),but the supporting cast,and how it doesn't make much of an impact,like My Name Is Nobody did so well.Great music from Ennio Morricone,though not very western sounding.In the end,Sergio Leone,was not impressed and took his name off the film and never did another western!

Bit of a disappointment this one, although it was always bound to be too good to be true.

Just think of it! A spaghetti western directed by the great Damiano Damini (A Bullet for the General) and the greater Sergio Leoni, starring legendary actors Patrick McGoohan and Klaus Kinski, with music by Ennio Morriconne. How could it go wrong?

Well let's start...

The opening sequence at least (directed by Leone) is brilliant and promises a terrific film. A promise that is not kept. The sequence has little or no bearing on the rest of the film, an action comedy about the conning of a racist cavalry Major (McGoohan) out of three hundred thousand dollars and the love triangle between the three con-artists, led by Terence Hill.

There seems to be something about most Italian comedy that simply doesn't work when playing to a British or American audience and here it is the same. Most of the film is buffoonery that falls flat, made increasingly worse by the decision to give most of the co-stars silly voices in the dubbing room. Klaus Kinski comes off the worst in his tiny cameo, looking great, out-acting everyone on the screen, but sounding like an ancient hillbilly. Miou-Miou's squeaky toddler voice is unbearable.

McGoohan too sounds bizarre, somewhere between an English toff and WC Fields (all the stranger still, because the voice is actually his).

The music tends towards the comical of course, and as such is not in Morricone's best work.

However, there are some diamonds among the rough. McGoohan's performance is great, in spite of the voice.Terence Hill makes a fairly engaging lead, whose description of a duel is a classic moment for spaghetti westerns. The climax too, an energetic chase, accompanied to Morriconne's reworking of Beethoven's Fur Elise, ending with a tremendous explosion that leaves McGoohan covered in white dust atop his horse like an imposing alabaster statue (worth the admission price alone) is evidence that there is some real talent at work here.

In a perfect world, A Genius would be the very best of the spaghetti westerns. As it stands, it is a failure that I'm very pleased to have seen.

Not as obviously or patently a Sergio Leone movie as MY NAME IS NOBODY from a few years earlier but still as Leonesque as a movie can possibly be while still playing ball in Enzo Barboni's slapstick turf (quite possibly the worst spaghetti western niche), this RAFRAN produced movie is heavily flawed but eminently watchable even when it doesn't make a lick of sense. Leone being Leone, he had to stick in his hand, even in a movie in which he had no creative stakes (unlike My Name is Nobody). The opening scene is a masterclass in directing as one would expect from a master cinematician even if it amounts to little more than moody silence and gliding tracking shots. Those who appreciated the slow-burn dynamics of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, will be spellbound for the duration. It's a fantastic opening to a movie that never quite capitalizes on it. The script is mired in inconsequential distractions and tacky "end of the West" commentary delivered without an ounce of subtlety ("the old man will go away", says Hill about an old Indian chief in the end as the rest of his Indian band prepare to take off without him dressed in fancy clothes and hats, "he represents the old West" #%^!) and the goofy hijinks Terence Hill became known for do the movie little favour but every now and then director Damiano Damiani comes up with a scene or a setup that impresses with its visual splendor. The Carlo Simi-designed sets, the beautiful locations in John Ford's turf in Monument Valley, and the technical skill involved in front and behind the camera (not Ennio Morricone's score though, which is far from his best work), are all far better than 95% of spaghetti westerns could ever afford, then or a decade before, so this should still be of some interest to the hardened spaghetti aficionado. Traditional Ford/Hawks loyalists should keep their distance though.

This popular latter-day Spaghetti Western proved a disappointment overall, considering the talents involved; to begin with, I've always been wary of semi-comic genre entries such as this – which stars one of its major exponents, Terence Hill (in fact, I recall having misgivings about even his MY NAME IS NOBODY [1973]): incidentally, that film was produced by the foremost director of Spaghetti Westerns – Sergio Leone – who was also involved with this one in an uncredited capacity (as a matter of fact, the striking and violent opening sequence is attributed to him!).

Anyway, the film clearly owes a huge debt to Leone's THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (1966) – several genre outings, actually, tried to cash-in on that classic by devising (often amusing) variants on its title – though there are so many characters involved that it's hard to determine who the various epithets are referring to! The international cast, then, includes – besides Italian Hill – Irishman Patrick MacGoohan (though playing a U.S. Cavalry officer), French Miou-Miou and Robert Charlebois, and German Klaus Kinski (appearing in a bit early on as a gambler/gunslinger). Director Damiani had dabbled in the genre previously with one of the politically-oriented efforts, A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL (1967); the film under review, though, isn't nearly as stylish or engaging – also, as with a number of examples of its kind, it's overstretched for no real purpose!

Another underwhelming element here is the score by "Euro-Cult" guru/genre stalwart Ennio Morricone – while pleasant in itself and occasionally inventive, it's decidedly forgettable in the long run: it seems he'd been doing it for so long that inspiration had pretty much withered by this time! There's not even that much action throughout the film: it's merely a collection of incidents which sees opportunistic Hill, gruff and dim-witted Charlebois (who's not only unhappy to be constantly reminded of his Indian heritage but he gets to negotiate terms with them over land rights while posing as a U.S. Colonel!), charming Miou-Miou, and shrewd villain MacGoohan (who's wasted here: what was he thinking?!) teaming up and/or double-crossing each other for possession of the proverbial booty (the plot, thin and all-too-typical – as can be surmised – is still separated by a good deal of padding). To be fair, the film is mildly enjoyable as such (a reasonable assessment for an outing emanating so late in the game) – but hardly unmissable as Spaghetti Westerns go