EDITOR’S NOTE: Mr. Billion was on the CBS Late Movie on September 22, 1982 and July 1 1983. 

Jonathan Kaplan started his career by making movies like Night Call Nurses, The Student Teachers, The Slams, Truck Turner and White Line Fever. He’d eventually make acclaimed movies like Heart Like a Wheel and The Accused. On an episode of Trailers From Hell, he called this movie “the biggest failure of his career.”

Written by Ken Friedman (who also wrote several other Kaplan film, such as Bad Girls; he also wrote Death By Invitation),  this was an attempt by Dino De Laurentiis at making an American movie that starring Italian actor Terence Hill, who was already well-known to American audiences for They Call Me Trinity.

The result? According to Variety, Radio City Music Hall in New York sued 20th Century-Fox for $107,123 because the tickets sold so poorly.

”When a simple garage mechanic suddenly inherits a billion dollars, he gets more action, excitement, romance and riotous adventure than money can buy!” Yes, Terence Hill is Guido Falcone, an Italian mechanic who is the only relative that didn’t beg his rich American uncle for money. When he gets the entire estate, his uncle’s business manager John Cutler (Jackie Gleason) flies to Italy to try and con him. Despite his sweet nature, Guido is way smarter than he appears and wants to look over the estate; he has to be in San Francisco on a certain date to accept the offer. Cutler, wanting the money for himself, hires Rosie (Valerie Perrine) and her friend Bernie (Dick Miller) to distract Guido and keep him for signing his estate papers.

Lily Tomlin was supposed to be in the movie, but the studio didn’t want her. And Perrine, as urban legend tells us, introduced herself to the sweet natured Hill by telling her that she could light a cigarette with her vagina. They did not get along after that and had to play that they were falling in love.

The supporting cast includes R.G. Armstrong as a Southern sheriff, Chill Wills as a military leader, Slim Pickens as a rancher, William Redfield as a lawyer for the company, Sam Laws and Johnny Ray McGhee as a father and son with differing views on life and even Leo Rossi as a kidnapper. As I say, it’s the kind of cast I personally would call all-star, even if no one else would agree.

Hill would also appear in another box office bomb the same year, March or Die, which also had Gene Hackman and Catherine Deneuve in the cast.

I have no idea why Hollywood would hire Hill and have him play in a movie that’s nothing like what he did best. At least he was able to work with Bud Spencer again and make plenty of late 70s and 80s buddy movies, as well as Super Fuzz as a solo movie three years later.

You can watch this on YouTube.