Full of references to Leone’s earlier films (the opening scene and duel scene of Once Upon a Time in the West; the old prophet from For a Few Dollars More), to children’s games, carnivals, and nursery rhymes, and to the work of Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch; the elderly gunfighter with eye trouble from Ride the High Country), Il mio mome è Nessuno started life as an attempt to turn Homer’s Odyssey into a Western – hence the title, an echo of what Ulysses says to the Cyclops. But as the project developed, it also became a commentary on the incredibly popular Trinity comedy westerns starring Terence Hill, and an arrivederci to the Italian western. Terence Hill plays the hyperactive Italian hero, and Henry Fonda – in his farewell to the western – gives a dignified performance as a fading ‘national monument’. […] Morricone’s music picked up on the elegiac, twilit atmosphere […]. The music exactly matched the tones of the movie: part lyrical ‘end of the West’ lament, part zany comic strip, Italian-style. Il mio mome è Nessuno was directed by Tonino Valerii, Leone’s assistant from Dollars days who had since directed four westerns of his own, as well as a couple of thrillers. He was conscious that, for Leone’s first film as a producer, he might favour “a young man trained in the Leone school of direction” and that Leone might also think that “he could influence me in a certain direction”. […] Il mio mome è Nessuno was filmed on location in America and then around Guadix […]. There were delays in Spain, so Sergio Leone took over the second unit, filming, among other scenes, the saloon sequence and the carnival with Terence Hill, who was thrilled to be directed by the maestro. When the film was released, Sergio Leone’s name appeared three times on the credits – “Sergio Leone presents”, “From an idea by Sergio Leone”, “Produced by Sergio Leone” – while the director’s name appeared only once. The public was eager for a new Leone film.

Christopher Frayling, Once Upon a Time in Italy. The Westerns of Sergio Leone, Harry N. Abrams, New York 2005