The streets of San Francisco have been seeing plenty
of action lately. And it's not of their own making. Responsibility
is being shared equally by Valerie Perrine, Terence Hill
and Jackie Gleason who all star together in a new movie, Mr
Billion. It's a fun story. One which, believe
it or not, has nothing to do with disasters or violence or
whatever it is that most studios believe is popular today.
Terence Hill plays an Italian car mechanic who inherits a
billion- dollar financial empire from his uncle, with the
stipulation that he must sign for his legacy in San Francisco
within twenty days. And so begins a fantastic journey from
Rome to Northern California where he hopes to claim his inheritance.
He gets there by means of every available form of transportation
- boat, train, plane, car, horse and bicycle.
20th Century-Fox, the production company, haven't skimped
on this picture. They actually started the filming in Rome
and moved gradually towards the United States, winding up
in San Francisco. That's the adventure side of the film.
For the action-minded I promise you won't be bored. A bundle
of spectacular stunts have been used in the film and Hill
does everything from almost perishing in a demolition derby
to parachuting into the heart of San Francisco from a Lear
jet. Racing against time, he has a pretty good shot at driving
all kinds of vehicles, and in some amazing sequences he's
seen behind the wheel of an Italian sports car, a helicopter,
a stolen police car, a borrowed '56 Chevy and a racing bicycle.
Somewhere in the middle of all of this he manages to fall
in love with Valerie Perrine, who plays a private detective
sent to stop our hero from claiming his inheritance. Italian
Terence Hill has a lot of enthusiasm for this film which
marks his American film debut. The star of countless spaghetti
westerns told me why he'd chosen Mr
Billion as his first American film. "I've
had more offers from American producers than from any one
else in the last two years that I've been living here, but
this was the first film that really suited me. I felt that
the first movie I would do here had to be appealing all round
and also have action, romance and charm, but without any
violence or sex - and I've discovered how difficult that
is to find. This was the film. The nearest we come to sex
here is in a single kiss!"
What about all those daring stunts? Had he done them himself? "Yeah," he
grinned, "I do most of my stunts in the film, but insurance
only allows you to do certain things, which is a shame. I'd
like to do it all myself, and I've found out that my audience
likes to feel I've done it. I'd rather do less work and do
it all, every single stunt."
Terence Hill gained worldwide recognition for his starring
roles in two spaghetti westerns, 'They
Call Me Trinity' and 'Trinity
Is Still My Name'. He also starred with Yves Montand
in 'The
Wide Blue Road', with Burt Lancaster in Visconti's
'The Leopard'
and with Henry Fonda in Sergio Leone's 'My
Name Is Nobody'. The spaghetti westerns changed
everything for Hill - including his name. "At the time
of the spaghetti western," he told me, "anyone
in such a movie had to change his name in order to have people
believe that the film was American. It carried more importance;
but then they were so successful that many people took back
their own names, like Sergio Leone. "I came into it
quite late and they told me to change my name fast." He
laughed. "It became quite popular!" |
