QT’S Hollywood gets a full-on shake-up
The five most surprising things about Quentin Tarantino’s first book — the novelisation of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood
1 IT’S VERY DIFFERENT
Rather than a simple expansion, Tarantino’s first novel is a full-on reimagining of his ninth movie. It begins with Rick Dalton meeting Marvin Schwarz not in Musso & Frank’s, but in Schwarz’s office. There are plenty of new scenes, it’s more sexually explicit, and the whole ending of the film — Rick and Cliff versus the Manson Family — is thrown away as an aside early on, the book wrapping up somewhere else entirely.
2 WE LEARN A LOT ABOUT CLIFF
Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth was a quiet, enigmatic presence in the film. The book, though, takes us on trips back through his past, filling in huge gaps in his story. We learn that his wartime experiences inspired a movie (which Rick Dalton stars in), the bloody tale behind how he acquired his dog Brandy, and how he nearly became a pimp in France. And the question of whether he really murdered his wife on that boat? It gets answered, and then some.
3 CHARLES MANSON GETS DIALOGUE
Where cult leader Manson was only glimpsed on the fringes of the film, here Tarantino adds scenes following him on a nocturnal “kreepy krawl” around Los
Angeles, doing an “ooga booga dance”. Unsurprisingly, he’s a very creepy presence. “I’m in your paws, I’m in your tail, I’m in your nose, and I’m in your pussycat skull,” he tells one disciple.
4 TARANTINO INSERTS HIMSELF IN THE STORY
One of the most moving additions is a scene where the filmmaker himself gets a mention, via his stepfather Curtis Zastoupil, who crosses paths with Cliff and Rick. Amusingly, we also learn that one of Hollywood’s characters ends up starring in a (fictional) QT movie, opposite Michael Madsen.
5 … AND HIS CINEMA TOO
Sharon Tate popped into the Bruin Cinema to see herself in The Wrecking Crew in the film. The book finds time for more big-screen outings, mainly by Cliff, who, it turns out, is fond of arthouse films, especially sexy ones. He heads to the Eros Cinema — which will later become the New Beverly, purchased by Tarantino himself in 2007 — to see The Sweet Body Of Deborah. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD BY QUENTIN TARANTINO IS ON SALE NOW