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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2009

Inglourious Basterds

Film by Quentin Tarantino

Contemporary Hollywood. United States. In English, German and French.

A Jewish-American commando unit and a cinema owner both plot against the Nazi leadership. The film ends with Hitler burned to death in a Paris cinema.

What it handed down

To Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

Structural model, well documented.

Both films end by rewriting history through cinema-style violence: Hitler dies in a burning theatre, and the Manson killers die at Rick's house. Rick's flamethrower appears first in a film-within-the-film, The 14 Fists of McCluskey, where he incinerates Nazi officers in a direct echo of Basterds, and he uses the same prop at the climax.

Where it came from

Find “Inglourious Basterds” on Amazon

1978

The Inglorious Bastards (Quel maledetto treno blindato)

Film by Enzo G. Castellari

Italian genre cinema. Italy. In Italian.

An Italian war film in which American military convicts escape and stumble into a commando mission.

What it handed down

To Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Direct source, well documented.

Tarantino took the title, altering the spelling, from Castellari's Italian war film. He gave Castellari and that film's star Bo Svenson cameos, though the plots differ.

Where it came from

The Dirty Dozen, film by Robert Aldrich 1967

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1967

The Dirty Dozen

Film by Robert Aldrich

Late studio-era Hollywood. United States. In English.

Twelve condemned soldiers are trained for a suicide raid on a château full of German officers.

What it handed down

To Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Thematic kinship, probable.

Aldo Raine's squad of brutal irregulars on a behind-the-lines mission follows the men-on-a-mission formula Aldrich's film popularised. Tarantino has spoken of the genre as the model for his commando plot.

To The Inglorious Bastards (Quel maledetto treno blindato) (1978)

Structural model, well documented.

Castellari's film was one of many Italian war pictures cashing in on The Dirty Dozen. Like Aldrich's film, it sends a band of military convicts on a commando raid.

Where it came from

The Dirty Dozen, E. M. Nathanson 1965

Find “The Dirty Dozen” on Amazon

1965

The Dirty Dozen

E. M. Nathanson

Postwar American popular fiction. United States. Written in English.

A bestselling novel about a US Army major who turns military prisoners into a commando unit before D-Day.

What it handed down

To The Dirty Dozen (1967)

Direct source, well documented.

Aldrich's film adapts Nathanson's bestseller. It keeps the premise of Major Reisman training condemned prisoners for a raid on a château before D-Day.

Where it came from

The line stops here: built on a wartime rumour of convict commandos; literary debts not documented.

Find “The Dirty Dozen” on Amazon

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 Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To Inglourious Basterds (2009)

To The Inglorious Bastards (Quel maledetto treno blindato) (1978)

Where it came from

What it handed down

To The Dirty Dozen (1967)

Where it came from

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