ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019)

This essay contains spoilers. Be forewarned.

First and foremost, OUATIH is a film that's going to depend a lot on what you take going into it. Not just culturally, but about the Tate/LaBianca murders and the people involved. (And don't get me started on the international trailer, which makes the film look like a buddy action rescue comedy. Cringe for a number of reasons.)

With my knowledge of the events, people, culture, and the TV/movies within it, coupled with my (before this film, total) inexperience with Tarantino films, here's my take on a film that's been much-written about and discussed. This is going to be less about the deeper themes and subtext (countless articles are out there about it), and more about my experience personally.

My mere addition to the "actor and double" thematic analysis: 

Note where the actors' names are placed on the screen.

Being "stuck in the past" when it comes to my influences and film-watching, OUATIH is about as "made for me" as a new film in the 2010s can get. Possibly the dream of any screenwriter is for them to be able to express their "memory piece" in a script, incorporating as many little details as possible to create (or partially re-create) a full-blown world in and of itself.

Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton

Brad Pitt as Cliff Booth

Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate

So, what did I take into OUATIH? Well, being a third-generation true crime buff helped with the historical elements, but of course, knowing the (regular and pop) culture of 1969, on the brink of inevitable change, probably put me at an advantage. It's not the same as actually being around then, of course, but knowing virtually all the names mentioned did make me feel good inside.

I also had an inkling on how the ending was going to go, so my first viewing was less filled with growing tension, but rather a calm, cool, "let's enjoy the slow ride" mindset.

Emile Hirsch as Jay Sebring

Al Pacino as Marvin Schwarz

(Side note: I imagine that if Rick and Marvin were having the above conversation a decade later, Marvin would say Rick wouldn't even be cut out for Mrs. Columbo. Ouch!)

The first time I saw the teaser trailer for OUATIH, I was hyped. Not only because of the music (opening gloriously with The Mamas and the Papas' "Straight Shooter"), but also for Mike Moh as Bruce Lee (more on that later).

Mike Moh as Bruce Lee, standing out in the teaser trailer

for all the right reasons.

But the subsequent main trailer emphasized the vulnerability of its main protagonist, one Rick Dalton.

As a perfectionist with a self-inflicted stubborn streak, I relate to this 

on a deep and spiritual level.

Full of fear for the future and little moments of honesty, Rick's role 

is that of both an audience surrogate and (one of) the film's heart(s).

Similar to Luke Skywalker in A New Hope (I know...), Rick Dalton is the main character, a role that would normally be filled by someone with Cliff Booth's personality in older films and shows. Constantly unsure of himself, albeit filtered through the ways of coping (alcoholism, heavy smoking, etc.) that would bat fewer eyes in 1969, Rick is not a man who keeps his feelings inside, and to its credit, the film never makes a big deal out of it. It's less "men shouldn't be afraid to cry" (though that's not a bad sentiment), and more "this is who Rick is, and Cliff is there for him and is his friend for who he is". 

"Men have feelings too... May I share mine with you?"

Bright yellow Hawaiian shirts never looked so cool.

By intricate contrast, Cliff is a man whose actions speak louder than his light, languid words. 

Constantly visually framed like the western hero Rick only played on T.V., Cliff is equal parts loyal friend and morally-ambiguous spaghetti western gunman. We're given several reasons why we're not supposed to like Cliff, but he's just so cool that we can't help but envy him a little. And it's clear that this is completely intentional.

While I question a couple of QT's other casting choices, 

I seem to be the only person floored at the casting of Rebecca Gayheart

as Cliff's late wife. Talk about adding to the subtext of that scene.

It took me some time (okay, months) to think about why Cliff has this ambiguity on virtually all fronts. My answer has mainly to do with how this all plays in the climax. If we saw Cliff as totally friendly with no dark past whatsoever, it would have just made his later actions a lot more disturbing and come right out of nowhere. (Again, more on that later.)

Much has been made of Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate and how she figures in the film. Film is a visual medium first, and had this been a novel, Robbie's amount of spoken dialogue would've stood out far more, but seeing as she's not the main character, this never bothered me in the quantitative sense. 

By all accounts, Tate really seemed like the nicest woman you could ever meet. Seeing her go about her normal daily life allows the viewer to step back from how she died and instead see how she lived.

In contrast to Rick being hard on himself, Tate 

gleefully seeing The Wrecking Crew should remind us to 

take pride in and enjoy our own work. There is no shame in it.

Character actor Clu Gulager (The Last Picture Show, McQ) 

appears as a bookstore owner.

Knowing Roman Polanski was cheating on her throughout 

their marriage, I interpreted that to be the reason for 

Tate's briefly-seen melancholy here.

AND THE REST...

Nicholas Hammond (Friedrich in The Sound of Music 

and the 70s Spider-Man) as director Sam Wanamaker.

Julia Butters as Trudi Fraser, 

rightfully praised by critics as a standout.

Margaret Qualley as spunky 

Manson "Family" member Pussycat.

Bruce Dern as a hilarious George Spahn.

(Also, Cliff's accent here reminded me of Edith Massey in Pink Flamingos.)

NOW, ABOUT THAT ONE SCENE...

Knowing what I knew going in and the historical fiction aspect, seeing Cliff's "flashback-within-a-flashback" scene with Bruce Lee...

The haircut seen above isn't what Lee actually had on The Green Hornet, 

but the 70s Enter the Dragon cut is so iconic, anyone would let it slide.

For the record, I'm a mixed Chinese-Canadian female who's white-looking enough to not get crap for being Chinese or mixed (yet), but here's my interpretation. 

For the most part, I understand what QT is trying to do, and I never thought this scene to be nearly as offensive as some others did. 

For one, the fictional aspect should be kept in mind. Two, this is Cliff's (ambiguous at best, unreliable at worst) recollection. Three, even in that version of events, Cliff is a condescending jerk to Lee, calling him "Kato" and treating him like a child. (And while I can see Lee boasting about his abilities, since, well, he could back it up, I can also imagine Cliff exaggerating Lee's claim that he'd "make [Muhammad Ali] a cr*pple".)

Four, outside that scene, in later separate flashbacks, Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring are seen training with a much nicer and more at-ease Lee. 

Further adding to the unreliability of Cliff's flashback is a factor that also clues the viewer in to the film's level of fiction:

One astute viewer online pointed out that a person would be seriously injured

from being thrown into a car door and leaving that massive a dent.

And while QT never struck me as someone who hated Lee (though I don't completely understand his original intent for the scene), he might have underestimated just how beloved Lee is by the Asian community. Would it have been better had Lee just totally kicked Cliff's ass? Maybe, if there was another scene for Cliff to show his skills, but I'm fine with the fight ending in a draw, implausible as that may be in and of itself. Hell, Lee would have probably been twice as fast as what we see here.

And Lee's battle cries here might be over-the-top, but...

(Hey, I love the guy too, but how can you not at least crack a smile?)

So that's my two yuan. If plans for a miniseries version of OUATIH come through, here's hoping we see more of Mike Moh. At least it wouldn't be this:

SO, THAT ENDING...

On first watch, again, I more or less guessed (correctly) how things would go, but the execution? (Pardon the term...)

Well first off, I certainly wasn't expecting the Manson "Family" members to change their plan while still in their car. 

"Sadie" (Mikey Madison) delivers a standout monologue about violence 

on television, while reminding the audience just how horribly warped

the Manson "Family"'s worldview was (and, well, is...).

No one in OUATIH gives a bad performance (well, okay, but Lena Dunham isn't called to do much, thankfully), but Mikey Madison's "Sadie" and Austin Butler's "Tex" both leave the audience thoroughly tense, but laughing from some of the screenplay's darker humor. (Think two twentysomething Tommy DeVitos, and you'll be in the ballpark of what I mean.)

"I'm as real as a doughnut, motherfucker!"

But as Binky Barnes would ask, is he more famous than a doughnut?

Like others, I felt some serious whiplash, considering what I'd been watching for the last two-plus hours. I knew enough about QT's filmography to know that's his style, and while it didn't quite gel at first, the final fight as a whole did eventually grow on me. That's partially due to its effort to take away the Manson "Family"'s power. 

Several have decried the climax for Cliff repeatedly slamming "Katie" (Madisen Beaty)'s head into a telephone receiver and a wall (similar, though intending the opposite effect, to ED-209 riddling the OCP executive with bullets for practically a minute in Robocop). While we're probably meant to be disturbed by how many times Cliff does it (and again, his ambiguity backs it up), and I understand that similar violence to both sexes in the same scene simply won't net the same reactions in the audience (for unfortunate and all-too-real reasons), at no point did these other reviewers at least acknowledge that right before it, Cliff had been brutally stomping on "Tex"'s head. (Perhaps if he did so repeatedly onscreen, that might have driven the point home.)

 Special props must be given to the makeup and effects people
for the utterly painful-looking effects. Though I have to laugh at the 
too-small head (or is it too-long neck?) of the "Tex" dummy being stomped on.

Once the chaos has cleared, and we're at the very end, hearing the first notes of Maurice Jarre's "Miss Lily Langtry" and seeing the gates of the Polanski house open for Rick, it dawns on the audience not only the meaning of the title, but also the "bedtime story" aspect and what it means for its reader. The "bad guys" are vanquished, the kind, loving person and her friends are saved (and were never in any danger), the hero makes several new friends, and the knight is battle-scarred, but may live to fight another day. (Again, though, the latter is (here I go) ambiguous.) Letting us enjoy this peace within the story, while sadly reminding us that's not what actually happened, is how you end a film full of melancholy and sentimentality like OUATIH.

LOGO (SCREEN) GEMS

OUATIH starts out with the 1968 - 1973 pink-draped variation of the 1936 - 1976 Columbia Pictures logo, which was featured on films such as Model Shop, Funny Girl, Tommy, and seemingly one-third of Goldie Hawn's early filmography.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

In a film full of accurate details, many have pointed out that LSD

breaks down when smoked and would not have made Cliff high off his ass. 

I, however, take this to be foreshadowing the film's true nature.

Gotta have my pre-2008 recipe KD. 

Yes, I'm that much of a mac-and-cheese freak.

QT has cited Cactus Flower (1969) as one of OUATIH's inspirations, which is odd,

because I don't remember Ingrid Bergman burning hippies with a flamethrower.

TIDBITS AND SUCH

Okay, so it's a cheap-plug-within-a-cheap-plug, but the QT-owned New Beverly Cinema's blog has some great articles by Kim Morgan, Peter Avellino, and Tim Lucas for further reading.

And if somehow, you haven't heard any of the songs from OUATIH's fabulous soundtrack, what are you waiting for? My personal favorites are Vanilla Fudge's cover of "You Keep Me Hangin' On", Neil Diamond's "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show", the aforementioned "Straight Shooter", and Los Bravos' cover of "Bring a Little Lovin'".

Inspired by this film, I once drove my car in Cliff Booth mode,

with my windows down and my aviators on, though knowing my radio, 

it was probably to Santana's cover of Ian Thomas' "Hold On" instead.

OUATIH clocks in at just over two and a half hours, so if you're like me, you'll best enjoy it in chunks, or better yet, with friends. 

Copyright © Chynna Moore

GANGSTER STORY (1959)

It's hard to craft a proper introduction for Gangster Story. In fact, I'm not sure if a proper summary or description could do it justice. But I'll try as best I can to show a little of why you should see it for yourselves.

Walter Matthau as Jack (not Jake) Martin

Carol Grace as Carol Logan

Bruce MacFarlane as Earl Dawson

Garry Walberg as Adolph

Gangster Story is the first and only film Walter Matthau ever directed himself, as he and newlywed wife Carol Grace were virtually broke at the time. Accepting the jobs of star and director for just $2500, Matthau later said that "It was a poor script by a hack writer and a famous cardiovascular surgeon who produced the film with his brother who was a textile manufacturer from Philadelphia." He also said that the film "premiered at Loew's in Newark, and was so bad it never crossed the Hudson."

Keep those descriptions in mind when watching this film.

Remember that curtain pattern. You'll see it again later.

Gangster Story is the "true story" (yeah, no) of notorious bank robber Jack Martin. Already wanted for the murder of two cops, he first plans a bank job upon his arrival in late-50s Orange County. 

Matthau's legendary acting teacher Raikin Ben-Ari as a plumber. 

Despite having only one scene, he's easily 

the most memorable character in the movie.

From virtually the first scene in Gangster Story, you will feel the serious need to leave your brain at the door. Do not be worried. This is a normal reaction, I assure you.

In a sequence that really must be seen to be believed, Jack calls the local police department pretending to be a film studio exec, asking for several cops to play themselves in a fake robbery scene (really) outside of a bank building, all while he's actually robbing the safe inside. Never mind how absolutely no one at any point asks for any permits (you know, being in Orange County and all), but none of the cops question why only Jack is present at the building front with them (with no crew to speak of), even if it's just a rehearsal.

No, you're not looking at two different scenes. 

This is really how this sequence is framed.

Local crime boss Earl Dawson soon gets wind of the robbery, and angry that an outsider pulled a job in his territory, he sends two henchmen after Jack.

We're supposed to believe Jack is able to at least be briefly unnoticeable in the racetrack crowd. However, when it's six-foot-something, dark-haired Walter Matthau in the middle of a sparse area, that's a stretch to say the least.

After evading the henchmen at the track, Jack walks into a library, looking for work. The librarian doesn't seem to be all that fazed when Jack tells her flat out that he's a bank robber.

Having met on the Broadway production of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, 

Matthau and Grace married in 1959.

A shot from the obligatory "falling in love" montage, 

though adorable in its own way.

And while we do get some answer as to why Carol takes to Jack the way she does (having been abandoned by her friends, mainly), the script makes this dynamic confusing at best, especially later on.

Matthau and Grace have some chemistry, 

but the script gives them little to work with.

Eventually, Jack kills one henchman and knocks out the other, and after Jack flees, Dawson just has Adolph shoot the surviving henchman for his failure, complete with the henchman's voice veering towards Mel Blanc-as-Edward G. Robinson territory.

Which brings me to the dubbing. While all the actors dubbed their own voices in post, the result (among other things) makes me wonder how MST3K never got their hands on this film. 

Rather than hunt Jack down, Dawson instead comes to Carol's house and proposes Jack join his gang. Given how Jack had just killed his other henchman, this would seem like a terrible idea.

But Jack agrees to join for the money and protection, and after a newspaper montage, Jack and Dawson plan to rob the safe at a country club.

Yes, that is Vic "Mel" Tayback as the guard in the middle.

After they pull off the job (and several other men are killed), Carol tells Jack that she is leaving him due to her not being able to deal with him being a murderer. This, despite knowing he had killed before the last robbery, not to mention her having been fine with his other crimes. I point this out because the script doesn't say much regarding a "sense of danger" or anything else to keep her with him. And while a part of me hesitates from criticizing the script too much (mainly due to Matthau re-writing it every day of filming), the truth is, little in the film can be taken seriously (to put it mildly).

There's the curtain pattern again. Keep in mind,

this is supposed to be a completely different apartment.

Again, my synopsis can't do it justice. You'll have to see the rest of the story for yourself.

Make no mistake, Gangster Story is bad. It's best enjoyed as a "so bad, it's good" indie movie, along with being a snapshot of an Orange County that's all but gone now. Not only do I recommend it for bad movie buffs, but it's also a short sit, with a total runtime of (I'm not kidding) 68 minutes. And it's arguably the easiest Matthau film to find, being on YouTube for your viewing amusement.

Car enthusiasts should get a kick out of the rods seen in Gangster Story.

Thankfully, the Gangster Story story has a happy ending. Not only did it outgross its competitor, The Wreck of the Mary Deere (so many questions), but Matthau and Grace stayed married until Matthau's death in 2000. 

TIDBITS AND SUCH 

Matthau and Grace's son Charlie Matthau (above) went on to be a successful director himself, directing his father in The Grass Harp (based on the novel by his mother's friend Truman Capote) and The Marriage Fool (a.k.a. Love After Death) co-starring Carol Burnett. 

Garry Walberg (Adolph) would go on to play Lt. Frank Monahan on the series Quincy, M.E. from 1976 to 1983.

Makeshift home video covers are nothing new for films like Gangster Story, but these are something to behold. While the first two aren't terrible, the last one, with a mustachioed Matthau and the NYC skyline (neither of which are in the actual film), also shows the World Trade Center towers, which wouldn't be built for at least another decade.

Copyright © Chynna Moore