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About the New QT Novel of OATIH: Mannix and The Hollywood Palace (NOT Friday Shows)

posted 3 years ago by ecarle (14979)
4 replies | jump to latest

Quentin Tarantino's new novel version of Once Upon a Time In Hollywood is out, and it is wild.

This is weird:

In the book, when Cliff goes home to his trailer to feed Brandy the killer dog, and watch Mannix, QT spells out the day and date as "Friday February 9, 1969." Which was correct. But he writes that Mannix and The Hollywood Palace(with Robert Goulet, clip in the movie) were "Friday night shows." Wrong, they were SATURDAY night shows.

So I wonder: did QT make a mistake or is he messin' with us? After all ,in the book, he casts Rick Dalton in real movies like Cannon for Cordoba in roles that were played by somebody else. He gives the grown up child star "Trudi" the Oscar nominated role that Meg Tilly had in "Agnes of God"(1985.) I guess if he can switch movies around, he can switch days and dates.

He makes this mistake too: saying that Cliff switches the dial from Channel 7 KABC-TV(from Hollywood Palace) to Channel 2 K-CBS TV (for Mannix)

K-ABC was right(they showed Psycho on K-ABC late on a Saturday night in 1967 as a Los Angeles only debut after CBS cancelled it for network showing.). K-CBS was wrong. That's the call letters today, but back then it was KNXT.

Sorry, QT.

[–] whynotwriteme (7720) 3 years ago

...he casts Rick Dalton in real movies like Cannon for Cordoba in roles that were played by somebody else.

I was fascinated by what he said about "Cannon For Cordoba". I'm a huge fan of all those late-60s early-70s Mexican Revolution western movies. I wonder if what he wrote about it was true in any way?

Tarantino writes that this movie was originally written as a Magnificent Seven sequel and called "Cannon For the Magnificent Seven". The producer cast George Peppard as "Chris", the leader of the Seven, because he was a bigger star than George Kennedy, who played him in Guns of the Magnificent Seven (replacing the original Chris from the first two, Yul Brynner)

Peppard refused to be the 3rd guy in the 4th movie to play Chris and demanded they remove all references to The Magnificent Seven. He got his way and the story was altered.

I am not sure if this is true, or if Tarantino made it up, because in his version, the role of Peppard's sidekick/enemy Jackson Harkness, was played not by Don Gordon as in real life, but by Rick Dalton. Is it a real story QT heard and incorporated, or did he just make it all up about The Magnificent Seven connection?

[–] cyguration (3951) 3 years ago

Tarantino has a LOT of errors like that.

He misquotes or mis-remembers some things, and I think it could be due to excessive cocaine use.

He attributed a quote to Linda Lee she never made, and also misinterpreted a passage from a book to make a point.

It's not surprising that while the book may have a lot of little details from the era, he also may have made some mistakes in the accuracy of those details.

[–] whynotwriteme (7720) 3 years ago

But are they actually "mistakes" or are they just how things went down in the alternate history where Cliff and Rick killed The Manson Family?

[–] cyguration (3951) 3 years ago

Possibly? I mean it's a good point if it's deliberate, but some of the anachronisms and alterations could simply be chalked up to mistakes, given that in actual interviews Tarantino has made those same kind of mistakes before.

With him it could be one or the other, or half a dozen either way.