Tarantino takes a shot (?) at Jack Lord

Soundtrack cover for Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

Quentin Tarantino is out with a novelization of his 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. As a result, the writer-director has even more room to make comments about 1960s entertainment.

So far, I’m only a chapter into it and noticed a less-than-flattering reference to Jack Lord, the first screen Felix Leiter and the star of the original Hawaii Five-O (1968-80).

In Chapter One (“Call Me Marvin”), actor Rick Dalton (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie) chats with agent Marvin Schwarz.

“Stewart Granger was the single biggest prick I ever worked with,” Dalton says. “And I’ve worked with Jack Lord!”

What brought this on? Lord (1920-98) had a reputation for (depending on your perspective) being a perfectionist or….more than that.

A 1983 Starlog interview with Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum revealed that Lord was wanted back to reprise the Leiter role for Goldfinger. Except, Lord wanted a big raise and better billing. Cec Linder got the job instead.

Also, there was this passage from a 1971 TV Guide article (text is available on Mike Quigley’s Hawaii Five-O page) that had quotes from Ben Wood, entertainment editor for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

“My phone rang. It was the show’s press agent. He said that ‘management’ was ‘very upset’ over the piece. I had called Zulu and Kam Fong stars. They are not stars, I was told. Not even Jimmy MacArthur. They are all ‘featured players.’ There is only one star of Five-O, and that is Jack Lord. When I reported this conversation in print, a couple of CBS vice presidents (Perry Lafferty and Paul King) got into the act. ‘Management’ had said no such thing. They demanded a retraction, making it look as if I was guilty of inaccurate reporting. That was when we began to refer to ‘Jimmy MacArthur, Co-Star’.”

The original Five-O ended its run more than 40 year ago. But, occasionally, there are still references to Lord. In November 2020, the official George Lazenby Twitter feed suggested that the one-film Bond may have had an interesting experience.

Also in Chapter One, Rick Dalton also compliments director Paul Wendkos to Schwarz. Wendkos’ many credits include the 1968 Hawaii Five-O TV movie pilot.

#TBT: Together with Victoria Principal and Jack Lord in Singapore filming the Hawaii Five-O episode,  The Year of the Horse,  directed by Don Weis back in the late 1970s. Victoria was great while Jack was something else. Stay safe guys. Love George x pic.twitter.com/NS3i1Y27Fi

— George Lazenby (@lazenbyofficial) November 19, 2020

A guide to references in Tarantino’s new film

Post for Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

These aren’t plot spoilers but the spoiler adverse should avoid.

The Quentin Tarantino-directed Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood opens this weekend. Trailers and TV spots for the film promised references to 1960s entertainment. It delivers.

Here’s a guide to some of the references that may be of interest to readers of the blog.

The Wrecking Crew: Margot Robbie, playing Sharon Tate, goes to a movie theater to watch the fourth Matt Helm film starring Dean Martin. She’s depicted as gauging how the audience reactions.

As a result, for most of the sequence, you have the fictional Tate watching the real Sharon Tate opposite Martin and Nancy Kwan. At one point, a fight scene between Tate and Kwan is juxtaposed with scenes of  of Robbie’s Tate training with Bruce Lee (Mike Moh).

Burt Reynolds in The FBI episode All the Streets Are Silent. Leonardo DiCaprio replaces Reynolds in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

The FBI: Actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and stuntman/gofer Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) goes to Dalton’s house to watch the actor’s appearance in The FBI in an episode titled All the Streets Are Silent.

It’s an actual episode of the series. Except shots with Burt Reynolds, playing the episode’s lead villain, are replaced with DeCaprio as Dalton. “This is my big FBI moment,” Dalton says just before the freeze frame at the end of the pre-titles sequence where the villain’s name is on the screen.

All the Streets Are Silent was a 1965 episode. But the film is set in 1969. So the title card for the episode’s name is altered so it’s consistent with the series for the 1968-69 season.

Mannix: At one point, Booth goes home to his own trailer and watches an episode of the private eye drama. The title sequence does match the titles for the 1968-69 season.

The arrangement of Lalo schifrin’s theme uses strings instead of a piano (which began in the third season and lasted the rest of the series.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.: The two shows are mentioned in passing by a character played by Al Pacino. Girl went off the air in 1967 while Man’s final episode was in January 1968.

The Wild Wild West: The show isn’t mentioned by name, but Al Pacino also references “Bob Conrad and his tight pants.”

The Green Hornet: There’s a flashback scene depicting Cliff Booth getting into a fight with Bruce Lee on the set of the 1966-67 series.

Have Gun-Will Travel: Underscore from the 1957-63 Western is used with a fictional Western series where Dalton had been a big star. Details of specific music is cited in the end titles.

Batman: The theme music for the 1966-68 series shows up in the end titles, along with audio from what sounds like a radio ad featuring Adam West and Burt Ward.

These are just a fraction of movie and TV references in the film. There are other trailers, posters and billboards shown throughout the movie.

UPDATE (July 26): Matthew Chernov advises via Twitter that there also is music from Thunderball in the end titles of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood.

“It’s a cue from Thunderball,” Chernov wrote in response to a tweet from me. “I saw both movies virtually back to back and it’s definitely part of a climactic action track.”

Chernov conducted a question and answer session with Luciana Paluzzi on July 17 at the Tarantino-owned New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles. The actress attended a showing of Thunderball at the theater.

Chernov also wrote a July 23 article for the James Bond Radio website about Pauluzzi’s appearance.

(July 29): Reader Matthew Bradford, in a comment on The Spy Command’s page on Facebook, advises the Thunderball music was part of the Batman radio spot cited above.

(July 30): Reader Delmo Waters Jr. identifies the Mannix episode as “Death in a Minor Key,” original air date Feb. 8, 1969. Guest stars include two future Bond film actors: Yahphet Kotto and Anthony Zerbe.

U.N.C.L.E. fanfic: Adventures of George and Quentin

1998 fanzine with the first, and only (thankfully), installment of The Adventures of George and Quentin

Director Quentin Tarantino is a fan of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In the 1990s, he talked about directing an U.N.C.L.E. film with himself as Illya Kuryakin and George Clooney as Napoleon Solo.

This week, I found out he’s apparently a (silent) member of an U.N.C.L.E. page on Facebook. That caused me to recall a one-time fanfiction series, The Adventures of George and Quentin.

Of course, I wrote it. So naturally I’d remember it.

It was a Mad magazine-like takeoff. It was written after 1997’s Batman and Robin, where Clooney got a lot of flak for his portrayal of Batman. Also, the takeoff imagined a Pulp Fiction version of Kuryakin.

All of this was filler for a fanzine with more conventional U.N.C.L.E. stories. The format was to rewrite, in script form, original U.N.C.L.E. scripts with the George and Quentin team.

Here’s one example:

THE ADVENTURES OF GEORGE AND QUENTIN IN THE DEADLY GAMES AFFAIR

INT. NIGHT. STAMP SHOP

STAMP EXERT (holds tweezers)
It is a desecration!

SOLO
Uh, is that bad?

STAMP EXPERT
Would you wipe the smile off the Mona Lisa?

ANGELIQUE (Uma Thurman)
Well, hotcakees, I guess we’re back to square one.
(pins flower on SOLO)

ANGELIQUE
Maybe I’ll see ya around.

ANGELIQUE leaves. In comes ILLYA who has been observing this scene from the window of the front door.

ILLYA
Why is that b**** so f****** happy? Who got killed?

SOLO
(bobs head, smiles)
Aw lay off, Illya. Everything is OK.

CUT to another angle where we see the flower has gotten ILLYA’s attention.

CUT to extreme close up of the flower. There is a deadly spider on it.

CUT BACK to the original shot. ILLYA swats the spider off the flower and then stomps on it.

CUT to close up of ILLYA’s foot stomping the spider. The camera lens is stained.

CUT back to the original shot.

ILLYA
G****** it. Napoleon! Can’t you keep your f****** fly zipped?

STAMP EXPERT
You mean that beautiful woman just tried to kill him?

ILLYA
Do you have s*** for brains? Of course she tried to f****** kill him!

SOLO
You know Shakespeare, my friend?

STAMP EXPERT
No.

SOLO
(smiles, bobs head)
Oh. Well never mind then.

There were four others of these, with George and Quentin versions of The Shark Affair, The Foxes and Hounds Affair, The Mad, MAD Tea Party Affair and The Project Strigas Affair.

Tarantino’s LA theater to show five 1960s 007 films

Sean Connery in a 007 publicity still

Actor-director Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles will show five 1960s James Bond films in July.

The movies are scheduled for 2 p.m. local time on Wednesday afternoons as part of the theater’s “Afternoon Classics” series.

The theater is showing IB Tech prints of each film. The term refers to a process for making color movie prints that allows for use of more stable dyes.

The schedule is as follows:

July 3: From Russia With Love.

July 10: Goldfinger

July 17: Thunderball

July 24: You Only Live Twice

July 31: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

UPDATE: Plaza Atlanta, which describes itself as Atlanta’s oldest movie theater, plans to show 25 James Bond films in July — the 24 (to date) produced by Eon Productions plus 1983’s Never Say Never Again.

A Facebook post by the theater has the schedule. They will be shown in order, with Dr. No leading off on July 1.

Tarantino’s theater to show an Irving Allen double feature

Dean Martin’s title card for The Wrecking Crew, titles designed by Wayne Fitzgerald.

Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema has scheduled a double feature of movies produced by Irving Allen — The Wrecking Crew and Hammerhead.

Allen (1905-1987) was the partner of Albert R. Broccoli. But the partnership ended in part because Broccoli wanted to make movies based on Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels while Allen was cool to the idea.

Once the 007 film series took off, Allen looked to get in the game.

The Wrecking Crew was the last of four Matt Helm films starring Dean Martin. To entice Martin, Allen made him a partner in the enterprise. That meant Martin, who got a percentage of the action, got paid more for 1966’s The Silencers than Sean Connery got for Thunderball.

The Wrecking Crew also is referenced in Tarantino’s upcoming movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywwod. The cast includes Margo Robbie as actress Sharon Tate. A recent trailer for the movie shows Robbie’s Tate going to see herself in The Wrecking Crew.

Hammerhead was based on a novel by James Mayo (real name Stephen Coulter), whose books featured a hero named Charles Hood. Vince Edwards played Hood in Hammerhead. One of the screenwriters was Herbert Baker, who had worked on three Matt Helm movies for Allen.

The Wrecking Crew and Hammerhead are scheduled to be shown June 12 and 13, according to the New Beverly’s website. The theater is showing a new 35mm print of The Wrecking Crew.

The Wrecking Crew figures into new Tarantino movie

The Wrecking Crew, the fourth and final Matt Helm film, figures into Quentin Tarantino’s new movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

The cast includes Margot Robbie as actress Sharon Tate. The movie’s trailer includes a scene where Tate goes to a theater playing The Wrecking Crew. In the Helm film, Tate played a klutzy British agent who ends up teamed with Dean Martin’s Helm.

A fifth Helm movie, The Ravagers, was announced at the end of The Wrecking Crew. The plan was to have Sharon Tate return. However, she was among seven people murdered by the Charles Manson family in 1969. Eventually, The Ravagers was called off and the Helm series ended.

You can view the trailer below.

Roger Moore double features in LA in August

Roger Moore in a 1980s publicity still

The New Beverly Cinema, a Los Angeles revival movie house owned by Quentin Tarantino, has scheduled Roger Moore double features in August.

According to the theater’s schedule, it is showing:

–Aug. 1: The Cannonball Run, a Burt Reynolds comedy with Moore playing a character who thinks he’s Roger Moore, and Mission: Monte Carlo, a movie that’s re-edited from two episodes of  The Persuaders! television show.

–Aug. 2-3: Ffolkes and The Wild Geese, two non-Bond action films with the actor. Both were directed by Andrew V. McLagen (1920-2014).

–Aug. 18-19: The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, Moore’s third and fourth films as James Bond.

According to the theater’s website, it only shows film prints.

Thanks to @jamesbondlive, the Twitter feed of the James Bond MI6 website for the tip.

Our modest proposals for Bond 25 Part II

Image for the official James Bond feed on Twitter

Despite all the unknowns (leading man, distributor, script, etc.) about Bond 25, Eon Productions is getting plenty of advice about the cinema future of James Bond.

Variety, for example, suggested Kathryn Bigelow or Quentin Tarantino would be good candidates to succeed Sam Mendes as director.

We’ve already done this act once, so here’s our sequel:

Select an up-and-coming director to helm Bond 25: Over at Marvel Studios, executives have a knack for signing up-and-coming directors such as James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Joe and Anthony Russo (the past two Captain America movies) with good results.

Taking such an approach may: 1) Provide a fresh set of eyes on 007 movie making and 2) Help with the budget because you’re signing people before they reach peak earnings power.

Bond 25 after the Sam Mendes-directed SPECTRE and, yet again, homages to past films could use the former. Or, put another way: The DB5, again after it was blown up in Skyfall? Really? Daniel Craig has driven it more than Sean Connery ever did.

Sign your own version of Kevin Feige:  Kevin Feige runs the Marvel movie operation and he’s credited as producer of each Marvel-made film. By all accounts, he’s enthusiastic about his job and has never publicly complained about the stresses of making big movies.

Both Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the co-bosses of Eon Production, have interests in non-007 projects.

A Feige-like deputy could keep an eye on things while Broccoli and Wilson are involved with plays, non-007 films and the like. Such a person could perhaps have kept a closer eye on SPECTRE’s script development while Broccoli and Wilson were involved with The Silent Storm.

The key thing would be to hire a sufficiently talented individual who the Eon co-bosses could trust. Not necessarily an easy task, but one worth considering.

Develop a succession plan if you haven’t already: Michael G. Wilson, at 74, has already spent a majority of his life in Bondage, longer than anybody else associated with the franchise. Over the past 20 years, he has commented more than once about the strains of the job.

Only Wilson knows if he’s up for doing it yet again for Bond 25. But whether it’s Bond 25, 26, 27, etc., nobody lives forever.

Sam Mendes said at a public appearance  that Barbara Broccoli alone will select the next actor to play James Bond. If he’s correct, perhaps there already has been some kind of transition. We’ll see.

Meanwhile Wilson’s son, Gregg, was assistant producer on Quantum of Solace and associate producer on Skyfall and SPECTRE.

 

U.N.C.L.E. double feature in LA on Nov. 21-22

Theatrical showings of two movies re-edited from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. are scheduled for Los Angeles on Nov. 21 and 22.

The Spy With My Face and One Spy Too Many are to be shown at the New Beverly Cinema, a revival movie house owned by director Quentin Tarantino. Each movie will be shown once on Friday, Nov. 21 and twice on Saturday, Nov. 22. The latter date also marks the 82nd birthday of Robert Vaughn, who played Napoleon Solo in the 1964-68 series.

For specific times and a link to buy tickets, you can CLICK HERE.

Each film contains scenes not in the television versions of their stories. For more information about The Spy With My Face, CLICK HERE and scroll down to episode 8. For more information about One Spy Too Many, CLICK HERE and read about episodes 30-31 at the top of the page.

The theater also plans another double feature of note for spy fans.

On Nov. 23 and 24, it will show The Venetian Affair, a serious 1967 spy movie also starring Robert Vaughn, with a cast that includes Luciana Paluzzi and Boris Karloff, and Hickey & Boggs, a 1972 movie reuniting Robert Culp and Bill Cosby as private eyes.Hickey & Boggs was directed by Culp and written by Walter Hill. Culp and Cosby had starred in I Spy, the 1965-68 espionage series.

Intrusion of real life paragraph:

Cosby has been in the news the past week because of rape allegations going back several years that he has denied (this CNN story summarizes the situation) and also because of his philanthropy (loaning 60 pieces of African art to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art as detailed in this NPR story).

Martin Campbell’s other Casino Royale disclosure

Earlier this month, two-time 007 director Martin Campbell gave an interview to The Express newspaper in the U.K. that drew attention from Bond fans for two items: 1) Campbell describing how Daniel Craig won the role in a tight competition with Henry Cavill; 2) How Quentin Tarantino sought the screen rights to Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first 007 novel.

Martin Campbell, director of GoldenEye and Casino Royale.

Campbell served up a third disclosure that didn’t get as much attention. Based on the director’s comments, the 21st James Bond movie may have been a reboot even if Eon Productions hadn’t made it as Casino Royale.

The key excerpt:

“Casino Royale was not going to be the next film. They were developing another script but then, after a long battle, the Broccolis [the family behind the Bond franchise] suddenly got the film rights to the first Bond novel Casino Royale, despite Quentin Tarantino bidding against them.

“The script being developed, he says, was an original story in which James Bond isn’t the character we know today but someone younger and more screwed up. Pierce (Brosnan) was getting on for 49 or something, and clearly too old to play the younger Bond so they decided to go in a different direction.” (emphasis added)

If the director’s memory is accurate (and he was accurately quoted), producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli were going to do a reboot no matter what, featuring Bond at the start of his career. Bond wasn’t a rookie agent in Fleming’s Casino Royale. The novel was set in 1951 (according to 1959’s Goldfinger, when Bond encounters a minor character from the first novel) and Bond had been involved in intelligence work in one for or another since World War II. One of the two kills that got him 00 status was a Japanese cypher expert in New York.

Michael G. Wilson, working with Richard Maibaum, had pursued an “origin of Bond” story for the movie that ultimately become 1987’s The Living Daylights. Then-Eon boss Albert R. Broccoli vetoed the idea, according to the Inside The Living Daylights documentary on the film’s DVD. Campbell’s recent comment raises the possibility that Wilson dusted off the concept almost 20 years later and it got folded into the plot of the film Casino Royale.

Still, Campbell (who also directed 1995’s GoldenEye) was only one of the participants involved and thus his comments are only one piece of what happened. Perhaps there’s yet more of the story to be told. Meanwhile, you can CLICK HERE
to view a timeline put together by the MI6 James Bond fan Web site of Quentin Tarantino’s attempt to film Casino Royale.