The influences behind Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

2019

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Film by Quentin Tarantino

Contemporary Hollywood. United States. In English.

Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film follows a fading TV western star, Rick Dalton, and his stunt double, Cliff Booth, through Los Angeles in 1969, alongside their neighbour Sharon Tate, and ends by rewriting the Manson murders. It is built from the westerns, spy films and war films of the period it depicts, filtered through Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time' fable framing.

Where it came from

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1966

Django

Film by Sergio Corbucci

Spaghetti western. Italy. In Italian.

A gunman dragging a coffin through the mud enters a border town divided between a racist gang and Mexican revolutionaries. It is one of the most violent of the Italian westerns.

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Direct source, well documented.

Pacino's agent Marvin Schwarz pitches Rick on going to Rome to work for Sergio Corbucci, director of Django. Rick's Italian films, such as Nebraska Jim, are imagined as Corbucci productions. Tarantino had already titled Django Unchained after Corbucci's film.

Where it came from

A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari), film by Sergio Leone 1964

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1964

A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari)

Film by Sergio Leone

Spaghetti western. Italy. In Italian.

A nameless stranger plays two rival families in a Mexican border town against each other. Its success launched the Italian western.

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Leone developed in his Dollars films the style he brought to Once Upon a Time in the West. That style includes extreme close-ups alternating with vast wide shots, long silent standoffs and Morricone scores cut to the action.

To Django (1966)

Structural model, well documented.

Corbucci's film repeats Leone's premise of a lone gunman entering a town split between two factions and playing them off. It pushes Fistful's violence and mud-caked look further.

Where it came from

Find “A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari)” on Amazon

1961

Yojimbo

Film by Akira Kurosawa

Japanese golden age. Japan. In Japanese.

A masterless samurai arrives in a town torn between two gangs and sets them against each other.

What it handed down

To A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari) (1964)

Direct source, well documented.

Leone remade Kurosawa's plot almost scene for scene, moving the samurai into a Mexican border town. Kurosawa and Toho sued and won a settlement and a share of the profits.

Where it came from

The Glass Key, Dashiell Hammett 1931
Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett 1929

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1931

The Glass Key

Dashiell Hammett

Hard-boiled fiction. United States. Written in English.

Hammett's novel of a political fixer who moves between rival factions in a corrupt city.

What it handed down

To Yojimbo (1961)

Direct source, probable.

Kurosawa acknowledged drawing on Hammett's The Glass Key for Yojimbo. Its hero moves between warring political factions in a corrupt town, and the film's cynical, laconic manner carries a hard-boiled tone.

Where it came from

Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett 1929

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1929

Red Harvest

Dashiell Hammett

Hard-boiled fiction. United States. Written in English.

The Continental Op cleans up the mining town of Personville by provoking its gangs into destroying one another.

What it handed down

To Yojimbo (1961)

Disputed link, probable.

Yojimbo's plot, an outsider who destroys a town's two gangs by setting them against each other, closely parallels Red Harvest. Critics often cite it as the true source, though Kurosawa named The Glass Key instead.

To The Glass Key (1931)

Stylistic influence, well documented.

Hammett refined in The Glass Key the method of Red Harvest: an outsider working among rival factions in a corrupt town. Both use the same flat, external narration.

Where it came from

The line stops here: hammett drew chiefly on his own Pinkerton work and the pulp magazine milieu rather than on documented literary models.

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Where it came from

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West)

To Django (1966)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari) (1964)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Yojimbo (1961)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Yojimbo (1961)

To The Glass Key (1931)

Where it came from

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