When I listened to the New Beverly podcast with Tarantino or Raskin (I can’t recall which one) it was speculated that, after the final scene, Polanski might have hired Rick for “Chinatown” and turned Rick’s whole career around, and they were quite emphatic that Rick was a good enough actor for that. They were much kinder to Rick than I was upthread. I thought Rick was coasting. They seemed to think he was simply unlucky.
Sorry if this has been answered but is that podcast still available of Tarantino talking about the soundtrack choices ?
The funny thing about the Spahn scene is that Squeaky was telling the truth! It all sounded like a lie to hide Spahn's fate, but it was true! Well, except maybe for her claims about sex - that's unclear. But the rest was accurate...
Yes, you can listen to it here; Pure Cinema Podcast: New Beverly Calendar: July, 2019 (with Quentin Tarantino)
Rick isn't a lousy actor. He's just treading water. When he's surrounded by talent - like Johnny Madrid and the kid, he's put in a position where he has to produce something more than the rote readings that he may have turned in earlier due to the formulaic style of acting that was called for in his earlier roles - hardboiled westerns. The Italy detour and spaghetti westerns put him in a position to be a leading man hero again. And now that he's back in Hollywood, sort of on the upswing, with a new look and outlook, he's waiting for a breakthrough role - which I suppose Tarantino implies would be in due course after Dalton's torching of Atkins (who I keep forgetting lived beyond August 9th, in real life).
for me, DiCaprio cracks me up when he first makes his 3ntrance eating the chicken leg. He’s hamming it up so much it’s funny. And his final line he delivers hysterically —. He looks and acts just like Benicio del toro What’s up with leading men and the snaked eyed hooded eye looks?
Yup. As Vidiot has taught us, take the film cost and then double it to cover marketing. But I did that...I think it’s going to make it!
So, I have a question. Is this expected to do well overseas? It’s shaping up that if it is going to make a profit, that’s where it needs to come from because with marketing, it is probably going to be a break even if you only consider the US. I ask because if you are from the US, there is so much you can relate to while watching the film. Even if you don’t know much about the back story, and I didn’t the first time I watched it (I was a little too young to know much about that when it all came down) I still enjoyed it as I am familiar with LA and so many of the pop culture references. But if you didn’t know much about the backstories, OR about LA and Hollywood, what’s left?? I would assume there would be a lot of curiosity seekers who might think this would be a great way to learn about Hollywood, etc, but other than that I don’t understand what the interest would be. I may be greatly downplaying that curiosity factor. And perhaps some of these star play well out of the US. Just curious.
Then tell that to the characters in the movie. It was mentioned quite a few times by the main characters they didn't like hippies when they saw or were approached by the Manson followers. So the answer to you is NO!
A warning that Cliff is a sociopath and will break the law if need be which he did. None of the Spahn Ranch "hippies" had shown they had broken the law or shown any violent tendencies. But anyway I think Cliff visiting the Spahn Ranch scene was a bit confusing and anticlimactic from a justification standpoint in that there is this tense build up of Cliff finding George (Bruce Dern's character) and what I thought was going to go down bad but it didn't. No one threatened Cliff as he quietly asked to see George to do a well check on him. It's so peaceful but kind of scary and then Cliff just halls off and beats the crap out of a defenseless "hippie" he suspects flattened his tire. What gave Cliff the indication these hippies were dangerous and needed to be taught a lesson?
The guy stuck a knife in his tire. The hippie pretty much laughed his affirmative response when cliff asked him if he did it.
The implication is that Rick will catch a break from meeting Sharon and then Polanski. There seems to be a lot of goodwill towards him because of his role in Bounty Law; even the hippies are impressed.
And the menacing way they were all acting towards him as he walked to his car. I think Cliff had every reason to send a strong message that everyone needed to hang back while his tire was being fixed. Nothing peaceful at all from my theatre seat! That appeared to be a powder keg ready to blow. That’s really what I was expecting from the time he went into the shack until he drove off! Great, moody scene I thought.
You're welcome, though I never intended for the original thread to be closed. I kept using spoilers in it and created this one so everyone could spoil to their heart's content... then the original gets closed. I believe Mr. Pete Townshend answered that question:
There were other hippies standing around in a crowd that could've stuck the knife in the tire. Rearranging the skinny, tall long haired dude's face just on suspicion alone didn't fit what I thought Cliff's character was about considering he was caring enough to do a well check on George. Besides the guy Cliff beat up looked more unhealthy than George to take a beating like that. But I believe QT wrote this scene not for character study but as a cathartic experience for what the audience knows about the kind of people Cliff is encountering. Cliff doesn't know they are sociopaths as well.
I'm curious to know what actual actor Rick Dalton is based on. What actor between the late '50's and early '60's was made popular as the good guy in movie Westerns but always played the bad guy in episodic TV roles later in his career?
Could be one of these guys, or a mixture of all of them? The overlooked second roles of TV's greatest Western stars
