1973 Henry Fonda Classic, His Final Western, Has a 100% Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score

Henry Fonda helped define the American Western, from My Darling Clementine to Fort Apache . He bowed out with an Italian comedy that spends two hours teasing the whole genre. Even the hero's name is borrowed from Homer.

What Is My Name Is Nobody ?

Fonda plays Jack Beauregard, an aging gunfighter who wants nothing more than a quiet retirement in Europe. A grinning young admirer known only as Nobody (Terence Hill) has other plans, steering his idol toward one last stand, alone on an open plain against the 150 riders of the Wild Bunch. On Rotten Tomatoes , the film holds a perfect 100 percent Tomatometer compiled from seven reviews, with an 83 percent audience score. Sergio Leone conceived the story, produced the film uncredited, and shot several sequences himself, though Tonino Valerii directed it. Roughly 80 percent of the outdoor footage was captured in the United States, including at Acoma Pueblo, the White Sands dunes in New Mexico, and on Royal Street in New Orleans, with American character actors Leo Gordon, R.G. Armstrong, and future Dallas star Steve Kanaly completing the cast. Collider ranks it among the 20 best spaghetti Westerns ever, calling it 

"a unique and grand achievement of the genre."

A Farewell to the Western, and a Nod to The Odyssey

The title takes its name from Book 9 of the Odyssey, where Odysseus tells the Cyclops his name is Nobody, blinds him, and slips away. The reference feels especially timely this summer. Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey , starring Matt Damon as the Greek king, has pulled in nearly $728 million worldwide in under two weeks and is closing in on $1 billion. Fifty-three years before Nolan sent audiences back to Homer, this Italian Western borrowed the same trick, naming its gunslinger hero after the oldest disguise in literature.

Morricone crafts a score that doubles as a farewell, spoofing his own Leone work with shrill choirs, a tinny rendition of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" for the outlaw gang, and a piece of Frank's theme from Once Upon a Time in the West during the shootout. Frank, of course, was played by Fonda. Five years after Leone transformed Hollywood's most trusted screen hero into a ruthless killer, he handed the icon a hero's exit, complete with a Boot Hill headstone reading Sam Peckinpah and a gang named after Peckinpah's 1969 movie. The Spaghetti Western Database calls the film "a fitting end for an already dying genre."

Fifty-three years on, it still plays like a warm goodbye.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jul 31, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.