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Un genio, due compari, un pollo / A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe / Nobody ist der Größte
Italy / France / West Germany 1975
Director: Damiano Damiani
With Terence Hill, Miou-Miou, Robert Charlebois, Patrick McGoohan, Raimund Harmstorf, Piero Vida, Rik Battaglia, Klaus Kinski, Mario Brega
Screenplay: Damiano Damiani, Fulvio Morsella, Ernesto Gastaldi
Cinematography: Giuseppe Ruzzolini
Music: Ennio Morricone
An amiable con man sets out to land a big score from a man even less honorable than himself in this comic spaghetti western. Joe Thanks (Terence Hill) is a swindler and quick-draw artist who wanders into a dusty little town after literally falling out of a stagecoach while asleep. After besting card-sharp Doc Foster (Klaus Kinski) in a public shootout, Joe reconnects with his old friend, Steam Engine Bill (Robert Charlebois), who is traveling with his beautiful but dizzy-headed girlfriend, Lucy (Miou-Miou). Joe has learned that an officer in the U.S. Cavalry, is escorting a $300,000 fortune that's been earmarked for Indian relief efforts; however, the commanding officer of the local fort, Major Cabot (Patrick McGoohan) has no intention of actually delivering the cash, so Joe hatches a scheme to take it for himself.
While his name does not appear in the credits, Sergio Leone had produced Un Genio, Due Compari, Un Pollo (aka A Genius, Two Partners, and a Dupe) via his shareholding on the production company Rafran, and also directed the pre-credit sequence (which bears a few of his directing trademarks without being anything special), with Damiano Damiani helming the rest of the picture and receiving the screen credit. "It was an amusing script, directed by someone with no sense of humour at all" (producer Fulvio Morsella).
In contrast to My Name Is Nobody, Leone never got suspected of being the actual director, and most probably also never wanted to be. "The film disappointed me so much that I decided to produce no more westerns" (Sergio Leone).