Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” contains hundreds of cinematic, cultural, and historical references. Here are a handful of examples — and they’re knowingly incomplete — with suggestions and analysis of their possible significance. Add your favorites in the comments.
This is the vintage widescreen Columbia logo, one of the “lady with a torch” cards used by the studio since its early days. This one is circa 1969. Columbia went from its original ownership, to Coca-Cola, and then Sony, which then imposed its name on the films. Since then, Columbia has been used occasionally as a Sony sub-brand — but Sony is the official “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” distributor.
Multiple TV westerns ran in the late 1950s, and the character could be a composite of any number of shows and leads. But both in the trajectory of his career and the concept of his show (“Bounty Law”), Rick Dalton has strong physical and career resemblance to Chuck Connors in “The Rifleman,” an iconic character that was hard for the actor to shake. Like Clint Eastwood (and Dalton), Connors starred in an Italian western (“Kill Them All and Come Back Alone,” directed by Enzo G. Casterelli), and appeared on “The Virginian” in 1971 as a guest star.
Richard Boone, from “Have Gun, Will Travel,” is another Rick Dalton contender. His stuntman was Hal Needham, best known for his relationship with Burt Reynolds. Boone never went into Italian westerns, though. He had one Western guest spot in “Cimarron Strip” (1967) and similarly had difficulty moving beyond his best-known role.
Booth’s inspiration clearly lies with the best-known stunt man of his time, Hal Needham (also, later, the very successful director of “Smokey and the Bandit” and “The Cannonball Run”). In his prime, Needham had a strong resemblance to Brad Pitt, particularly when wearing sunglasses.(However, let’s hasten to add that he was not suspected of possibly killing his wife.)
He was close friends with Burt Reynolds, and the two often lived together during the 1960s. Reynolds himself was originally cast to play George Spahn, who owns the ranch that becomes a squatters’ home to the Manson family. However, Reynolds died just before shooting started.
Julia Butters, the precocious eight-year-old actress (or as she prefers, actor) who steals her two scenes with DiCaprio’s Rick, is about the same age as Jodie Foster when she made her initial mark in the industry. Foster’s early roles included multiple appearances on “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza.”
There’s a possible reference to the king of all genres, Howard Hawks, whose career spanned “Scarface,” “Bringing Up Baby,” “To Have and Have Not,” and “Red River” among his masterpieces. The scene where Sharon Tate shops in a bookstore takes place in the L.A. neighborhood of Westwood, near the Bruin Theater. In Hawks’ Philip Marlowe adaptation “The Big Sleep,” Humphrey Bogart visits two bookstores in the area as he sleuths a murder. (Sharon Tate buys a copy of “Tess of the d’Urbervilles,” which Roman Polanski adapted in 1979 with Nastassja Kinski, who also had a relationship with the widowed director.)
“El Dorado,” Hawks’ 1966 western, was a quasi-remake of his huge hit “Rio Bravo,” and included a famous confrontation in a cantina that looks much like the set of the TV show “Lancer” — specifically with its unusual focus on a wooden stairway and the sense of a two-level room (atypical for westerns).
Although many film historians regard John Ford as the greatest American-born director, Tarantino has been on a tear, disparaging him. Even so, there is a clear reference, if not homage, to “My Darling Clementine,” one of Ford’s greatest westerns. On the set of the TV western, Rick and Julia are seen briefly with outstretched, booted feet, sitting on a wooden walkway; a similar view of Henry Fonda in Ford’s film is one of the most iconic film images. Later, when Rick and Cliff have returned from Italy and begin a night of drinking, Cliff can be heard praising William Witney, the action-oriented director of many Westerns (and many episodes of the 1957-60 “Zorro” TV series). In a 2013 interview with Film Comment, Tarantino said he thought Witney should have the stature of Ford.
Among the many tense, long-remembered scenes in “Psycho” is when Vera Miles, as the sister of murdered motel guest Janet Leigh, searches a decrepit old house determined to locate Mrs. Bates. In “Once Upon a Time,” at the Spahn Ranch, Cliff will not be stopped in his quest to find old colleague George. The music in the scene briefly shifts to a Bernard Herrmann-like riff. “Mrs. Bates,” of course, was eye-less (George supposedly is blind), and the old man here is nearly as skeletal. And, of course, “Psycho” shares, though not in this scene, a preoccupation with knives.
On two separate occasions, Cliff’s meticulous preparation of food for his dog takes on an oversized presence for an activity rarely prominent in the movies. However, around the time of the film’s setting, there were two films in which doggy meals took on great importance.
The better known is Robert Altman’s 1973 “The Long Goodbye,” in which Elliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe dotes on his beloved cat, Chauncey Scratchit, and his finicky insistence on certain films. Altman’s film also includes a jaundiced view of young, somewhat liberated L.A. females with “hippie” traits.
Another was Robert Aldrich’s 1968 Hollywood scandal story, “The Legend of Lylah Clare.” That film ends with a TV ad for Barkwell Dogfood, shown with the lid removed by electric opener and then dished out to what turns out to be multiple ravenous dogs who overwhelm the woman feeding them. The ad is the backdrop in the final shot, in which a bitter woman is at the home of a movie director who has depended on her for part of his success. She watches TV while caressing a gun, intending to shoot him with when he comes home.
Even older viewers who recognize Steve McQueen, Connie Stevens, Cass Elliott, and Michelle Phillips in the movie may not realize that Sam Wanamaker was a real person. Wanamaker, the director of Rick’s “Lancer” episode, is best known as an actor, with his role as Goldie Hawn’s dad in “Private Benjamin” and as a mob boss in the Schwarzenegger “Raw Deal.” His career began in the late 1940s, and he was a member of the blacklist. After working in his native U.K., he raised his profile with 1965’s “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold,” along with acting and directing TV. That included the actual NBC western series “Lancer;” Wanamaker directed the pilot episode, and it ran for two seasons. (Of note: He is played by Nicholas Hammond, who 54 years later is still best known for as Friedrich in “The Sound of Music.”)
The Playboy Mansion, famed home of Hugh Hefner and site of many parties, didn’t exist in 1969. Hefner didn’t move part time to Los Angeles until 1971, and moved into the place in 1974.
In 1969, Westwood’s Bruin theater was one of the most desirable theaters in the world. From its opening decades earlier, it was a premiere showcase for some of the top releases. “The Wrecking Crew” was the fourth entry in Columbia’s James Bond-inspired Matt Helm spy series with Dean Martin. It was an early-1969 release, but did not play in top theaters and would never have played in the prestige Westwood theater.
Also, though average movie prices in 1969 were much lower than today, and matinees might be lower still, a theater like the Bruin charged a high-end price ($3 or more, most likely), not the neighborhood-theater 75 cents shown here.
The “Lancer” episode includes an intense child-hostage scene, in which Rick threatens to shoot Julia Butters’ character in the head. What we see is filming on a TV set, of course, but it’s hard to see how anything resembling that intensity would have been shot under 1969 network standards and practices.
The flamethrower used in Rick’s war movie, “The 14 Fists of McCluskey,“ is important for its return in the climax. But the scene shown, including the incineration of soldiers, would not have passed studio code standards in the mid-1960s. As late as 1967 (including Cornel Wilde’s “Blood Red”), war-scene violence was cut for its perceived brutality. Flamethrowers were used on a handful of occasions, but only in black-and-white movies like Don Siegel’s “Hell Is for Heroes.”
