384: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with John Barker

00:00:00:15 – 00:00:20:09
Dan LeFebvre
Since every movie takes different creative liberties portraying historical events. Let’s start today by getting an overall bar park idea of how accurate today’s movie is. So if you were to give Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, letter grade for its historical accuracy, what would it get?

00:00:20:12 – 00:00:39:05
John Barker
Well, I would give it a C. I think, not a great score. It sounds like. But that’s not a criticism, really. And I might say that’s even intentional. And to the film’s credit, because while I think Tarantino is doing isn’t really a history lesson, I mean, the clues, they’re kind of in the title. It’s called Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

00:00:39:09 – 00:00:58:06
John Barker
He tells us from the very start that this is a fairy tale. It’s set in real time and the real place with some real people. Those characters. But it’s very much a re-imagining, like an alternate history built on top of real events, which are the Hollywood of the late 60s, the counterculture of that time, the cultural shift. The Manson Family enchanted the course.

00:00:58:11 – 00:01:19:25
John Barker
All that’s real, and lots of it is depicted by Tarantino with lots of care. But the big dramatic moments, things like the mansons going to the wrong house and the movie star frying one of them with a flamethrower at the end, but didn’t happen as far as the right way. So yes, absolutely. But I think Tarantino might even take that as a compliment with what he’s kind of going for in the film.

00:01:19:27 – 00:01:36:21
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. I mean, it’s I got that impression from it just watching it. Okay. This is probably an alternative again. You know, another Quentin Tarantino movie we’re not talking about today, but, you know, like, Inglorious Bastard. I think he kind of did a similar sort of concept where obviously World War Two was a real thing.

00:01:36:24 – 00:01:40:23
Dan LeFebvre
But then layering this story, that is kind of an alternative type history, like you mentioned.

00:01:40:23 – 00:01:56:28
John Barker
But has very much a fantastical ending as well. I think personally, it works a lot better in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood than it does in Inglourious Basterds. I think maybe in Inglourious Basterds, what he’s doing with kind of World War Two, the Nazis. I think that might just be too big to kind of play with reality a bit.

00:01:57:00 – 00:01:59:09
John Barker
I watch how I feel about it.

00:01:59:12 – 00:02:14:20
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I can’t see that. I think one of the one of the reasons I use that example, I think, is because it’s it’s obviously fantastical, because people are familiar with how World War Two ended, a lot more so than I think. I mean, obviously, a lot of people know about, Sharon Tate and the murders and all that happened.

00:02:14:20 – 00:02:20:21
Dan LeFebvre
But maybe not on the same scale as World War Two. In my mind, at least, maybe that’s just me.

00:02:20:23 – 00:02:35:21
John Barker
No. Certainly not. It’s just about everyone knows World War Two. It’s it’s one of the biggest events of the last 150 years. And you can’t you can’t still, you can’t really escape it. It feels like maybe being a little bit flippant, if that’s the right word. When it doesn’t just fit, it doesn’t just sit right. I think with a lot of people.

00:02:35:23 – 00:03:00:28
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. Well, let’s get back into Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And one of the more common creative liberties that we see in historical movies are when the filmmakers, well, change names or just create composite characters, or sometimes just make up entirely fictional characters. And for today’s movie, there are three main characters I think. Feel free to add more if you want, but I think the the main characters are the actor Rick Dalton, who’s played by Leonardo DiCaprio.

00:03:01:00 – 00:03:21:06
Dan LeFebvre
Then his stunt double, I should say Rick Dalton’s stunt double and assistant in the movie named Cliff Booth. He’s played by Brad Pitt. And then the actress named Sharon Tate, who’s played by another actress, Margot Robbie. And while he is a smaller character, Tate is married to Roman Polanski. When the couple become Dalton and Bruce neighbors. Are any of those based on real people?

00:03:21:09 – 00:03:39:24
John Barker
Yes. So I agree. Those are the three main characters for sure. Of those three, only Sharon Tate is the real person. She was a real actress. She was married to Roman Polanski, who was a director and was killed by members of the Manson family in 1969. I think Tarantino did take two with a lot of warmth in respect.

00:03:39:27 – 00:03:58:29
John Barker
I think he’s quite deliberately saying, kind of look at what we lost in Sharon Tate and Margot Robbie plays a brilliantly. I think I know that out of respect for the family, Tarantino got in touch with Sharon’s younger sister Deborah before filming, and Deborah Tate ended up on set quite a lot, and she even lent them sort of Sharon’s jewelry for, like, the Playboy Mansion scene where we see Sharon dancing.

00:03:59:02 – 00:04:24:12
John Barker
Margot Robbie’s wearing some of Sharon Tate real jewelry. I forget that to Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth. They are fictional, but even they’re not made up totally from scratch because Tarantino drew pretty heavily on Steve McQueen for Rick. Rick’s arc mirrors McQueen’s own career quite a bit, because Steve McQueen goes brick on a 50s TV western about a bounty hunter called Wanted Dead or Alive, which becomes Bounty Law in the film that Rick’s in.

00:04:24:12 – 00:04:45:11
John Barker
And the first time we see Rick in Bounty Law, you’re actually tearing down a poster that says Wanted Dead or Alive, which is obviously a little nod back to that and that whole dynamic between Rick and Cliff, the stunt man best friend dynamic that comes from real relationships as well. Steve McQueen had that with his own stunt man, but Deakins, and Burt Reynolds, he had a very similar relationship with his stunt man, Hal Needham.

00:04:45:11 – 00:04:57:22
John Barker
So that’s kind of where Cliff comes from. He’s not a real person, but he’s rooted in reality. So, yeah, so one real person of the three and two fictional characters who are kind of built from real foundations, if you like.

00:04:57:25 – 00:05:14:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. It sounds like, with Tarantino, you expect a lot of those little details anyway, but it sounds like. Yeah, for sure. He’s got these little details in there, based on Steve McQueen, which we’ll get to you a little bit later, too, because there is a scene in the movie I want to talk to you about with Steve McQueen, for sure.

00:05:14:27 – 00:05:43:11
Dan LeFebvre
Well, if we go back to the movie’s timeline, it is 1969, and Rick Dalton’s career doesn’t really seem to be going well in the movie. So he and Cliff Booth head to Italy for six months to make some spaghetti Westerns. And this just kind of seems like one of those moments where maybe they’re they’re looking at moviemaking from the current day, you know, as a moviegoer, we’re looking at this from a current day because right now we think of movies, let me call it, you know, Hollywood and such, but it’s not necessarily just one city.

00:05:43:11 – 00:06:05:06
Dan LeFebvre
Movies these days are made everywhere. And so when you see, you know, in the movie and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the impression I got in the movie there was that going to Europe to make movies is going to be a death sentence for Dalton’s already declining career. So can you kind of take us back to Hollywood in the late 1960s, when this is taking place in this movie?

00:06:05:06 – 00:06:09:04
Dan LeFebvre
And how common was it for actors to go to Europe to make movies?

00:06:09:07 – 00:06:29:12
John Barker
Yeah, well, I mean, you’re right with the modern day globalization, the world’s a smaller place, isn’t it’s always a big idea for somebody to go to Europe from America to carry on whatever career was. But what we’re talking about was the actors going there in the late 60s, it was pretty common at the time. I think the film captures why it did feel like a step down really well, because obviously Tarantino knows his film history inside out.

00:06:29:14 – 00:06:51:02
John Barker
So in late 60s in America, New Hollywood was arriving. The old Hollywood system studio system was kind of crumbling. This new generation of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola, others were all coming through, and they were making much more grounded, more raw films. And the one that younger actors, people like Robert De Niro or Dustin Hoffman, had just done, The Graduate.

00:06:51:06 – 00:07:18:13
John Barker
So the game was changing in Hollywood, and actors like Rick, these TV western guys like your classic square jawed leading men types. They were suddenly a bit old hat, a bit yesterday’s news, and then tied in with that is that spaghetti Western boom of the films it touches on as well, that had been going on since the mid 60s, where things like Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy like The Good, the Bad and the ugly with Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and a lot of American actors will go to Europe to kind of cash in on that chick.

00:07:18:16 – 00:07:39:21
John Barker
And Tarantino, actually talking of Lee Van Cleef, took a lot of inspiration from him for Rick’s house in the film because when he was scouting locations, he visited one police widow and said that her house was still like a 1960s time capsule because Van Cleef had a huge painting of his own face in the garage. So that is why Rick has a huge picture of his own face on his driveway, which is a nice detail.

00:07:39:23 – 00:07:59:10
John Barker
But yeah, like like see in Europe was a real option for actors, especially Italy, and it was the kind of movie that a lot of people saw as a sort of admission that you couldn’t have in Hollywood anymore, which is exactly how Rick feels about it. So again, that’s not a real story. Ron McDonald. And it’s very much based in the reality of some actors careers at the time.

00:07:59:12 – 00:07:59:24
John Barker
Yeah.

00:07:59:27 – 00:08:21:17
Dan LeFebvre
When you were I mean, you mentioned that the the shift he’s going from TV to movies. I didn’t think about this when I was watching it, but, that back then I’m thinking of, you know, like in the golden age of Hollywood, there was this, correct me if I’m wrong, but the impression I get is that, there was this stigma around going from film to TV.

00:08:21:18 – 00:08:42:05
Dan LeFebvre
Once, you know, TV started to become a thing. Like there was movie stars didn’t want to do TV was during this. The timeline of what we’re seeing in the movie in the late 1960s, was there a stigma of TV stars like Rick Dalton making a shift to the movies? Like maybe it was tough for him to break into movies?

00:08:42:08 – 00:08:56:23
John Barker
I think back then there was definitely much more of a line between TV and film than what there is now, because now with Netflix and all of that, they can pay big, big bucks. So you see the biggest stars in the world getting their own TV shows. Gabe. Okay, winter’s on the and lots of them have done it.

00:08:56:25 – 00:09:15:25
John Barker
Back then it wasn’t such a big thing. It was much more of a line, I think, between TV star and film star. Some of them did make that crossover, like Steve McQueen. You mentioned Jodie Foster. She started on Gunsmoke, the TV western, when she was 12 years old. She that’s actually why, Julia character here, the girl who talks to DiCaprio’s character.

00:09:15:25 – 00:09:35:00
John Barker
Who why she’s in the film. She’s a nod back to Jodie Foster. It’s not only the 12 year old, so lots of them were making the crossover. We got to be, I think, got out the talent and probably do the right look as well. And some people like Rick Dalton in this who were kind of mid 40s pushing on beyond that Hollywood, you didn’t really, really know them, so they didn’t really have a chance.

00:09:35:00 – 00:09:43:05
John Barker
But they’re always trying to push for it. So the end up I want to make a movie I love you. So let’s let’s head off over there.

00:09:43:08 – 00:09:48:15
Dan LeFebvre
And it’s a nice little, additional touch. Again, it goes back to Quentin Tarantino knowing the hits.

00:09:48:15 – 00:09:52:16
John Barker
There’s so many of them. Yeah, so many. You know.

00:09:52:18 – 00:09:54:29
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned Steve McQueen. Sorry. Go ahead.

00:09:55:01 – 00:10:11:05
John Barker
So I was going to say yeah. Because with this film as well, it’s not just happened to you writing about this time and place. He’s writing about a time and place that not only does he love, he grew up in, so he knows it inside out. It’s very much a love letter to Hollywood, specifically the Hollywood that he grew up with, I think, and he knows it inside out.

00:10:11:05 – 00:10:17:29
John Barker
So that that kind of is in every single frame of the film. I think you guys, I think this is the most personal film he’s ever done.

00:10:18:01 – 00:10:24:18
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. No, that’s a that’s a good take on that. I hadn’t, hadn’t considered that before. Yeah. It’s you know a love letter to Hollywood almost. And.

00:10:24:22 – 00:10:27:11
John Barker
Yeah it is. Yeah. Nice.

00:10:27:13 – 00:10:52:05
Dan LeFebvre
Well you did mention Steve McQueen and I want to ask about this part because in the movie we see an alternate version of another movie where Rick Dalton, he’s talking about, the time that he’s almost got cast is Steve McQueen’s part as the American pilot, Captain Virgil Hilts. In 1963, the great Escape was the role of Captain Hilts, almost given to someone other than Steve McQueen?

00:10:52:07 – 00:11:06:15
John Barker
Well, I mean, the casting of The Great Escape, that’s kind of a story of its own. We’ve actually done an episode on that one as well, because it was full of big stars, and there was a lot of conflict going on behind the scenes with egos and that kind of thing. But no, it doesn’t seem that anyone else was really in contention to play Captain Hilts.

00:11:06:18 – 00:11:26:14
John Barker
I know that The Great Escape director John Sturges, because he had a British cast, it was very much a British story. You wanted a way to kind of Americanize that for the American audience. And he saw Steve McQueen, Mr. America kind of as a perfect person to do it. So I think he kind of always wanted him. But what you might be interested in is that I know that hilts was kind of based on a real person as well.

00:11:26:16 – 00:11:45:27
John Barker
So there was an R.A.F. World War Two pilot called William Ash. He was shot down over France in 1942, and he attempted to escape prisoner of war camps like 13 times or something. And he ended up being put in solitary. So that’s where the idea of the cooler King in solitary came from. But no, nobody else was nearly cast as hilts, and certainly not Rick Dalton.

00:11:45:27 – 00:11:47:13
John Barker
Obviously.

00:11:47:15 – 00:12:07:19
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, well, he’s fictional anyway, so yeah, exactly. But I love what they did in the movie. I thought it was a nice take that you actually get to see Leonardo DiCaprio edited into actual scenes from The Great Escape, which it was. I looked it up and, it was the Great Escape was released like 11 years before DiCaprio was even born.

00:12:07:22 – 00:12:31:26
Dan LeFebvre
But that made me wonder, let’s just random. Okay, let’s say you could recast any role from a classic film with a current actor or actress, similar to the way that we see Leonardo DiCaprio from 2019, when Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was released, playing Steve McQueen’s role from 1963, Great Escape, who would it be and what role would they play?

00:12:31:28 – 00:12:50:25
John Barker
It’s a good question, and I’ve thought about it. And the film I go for is a Bonnie and Clyde from 1967, so that I think, is ripe for a remake. It’s based on a true story, obviously, so wouldn’t even be a remake really more of a different version of those real events, the kind of folk anti-heroes they’ve become.

00:12:51:01 – 00:12:58:06
John Barker
I mean, I find the real Bonnie and Clyde a pretty fascinating story. I think a lot of people do, which is why they kind of prevail. Have you done that? One of you covered that one?

00:12:58:08 – 00:13:06:23
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah, I have. I’ve actually talked to the, historical consultant on The Highwaymen. I don’t know if you saw that, the Netflix movie.

00:13:06:26 – 00:13:07:03
John Barker
Yeah.

00:13:07:11 – 00:13:12:03
Dan LeFebvre
And they took him down. Yeah, yeah, it’s on new Phillips was the consultant on that, so. Yeah.

00:13:12:06 – 00:13:29:12
John Barker
I’ll check that one out. But obviously in 1967 they were played by Faye Dunaway. And Warren Beatty. And for another one I would go with Austin Butler as Clyde, and Margaret Qualley as Bonnie. I think Austin Butler is great. I think he’s a great actor. He’s charismatic, he’s got a bit of intensity, so that would work well.

00:13:29:12 – 00:13:47:14
John Barker
As Clyde Barrow on Margaret Qualley. I see her be electric in films, and she’s got a bit of, like, unpredictability about, what you like on this movie star quality. That would work really well as Bonnie Parker. So I think they’d be great on the tie or back together. Both Austin Butler and Margaret Qualley are in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is Butler.

00:13:47:14 – 00:13:56:13
John Barker
Please tell us what’s in one of the Manson killers. And Margaret Qualley is Pussycat, one of the Manson girls. But yeah, I’d love to see them two in those two roles. That’d be great.

00:13:56:15 – 00:14:01:19
Dan LeFebvre
That would be, that would be fantastic to see a Quentin Tarantino version of that, too.

00:14:01:19 – 00:14:13:23
John Barker
Oh, I would, yeah, yeah. Oh, that film came out, which was the diary by author Penn in the final scene where the get kind of killed was really controversial of how graphic it was. So I think we’ve run that’ll be even more probably.

00:14:13:25 – 00:14:19:06
Dan LeFebvre
Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. He would you think.

00:14:19:08 – 00:14:24:02
Dan LeFebvre
He’d find a way to do that. You did shoot the car it explode or something like that. Yeah, yeah. No reason.

00:14:24:08 – 00:14:28:07
John Barker
Yeah. People eating burgers, drinking milkshakes. Yeah.

00:14:28:09 – 00:14:46:05
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. If we go back to it, once upon a time in Hollywood, there is a scene that we see with another famous actor, Bruce Lee. Cliff Booth gets into a fight with him while he is shooting The Green Hornet. And in the movie, Booth has no trouble beating Lee. And I’m just I’m assuming that particular fight didn’t happen again.

00:14:46:05 – 00:14:52:12
Dan LeFebvre
Correct me if I’m wrong, but do we know if Bruce Lee got into any fights with other actors during his time in Hollywood?

00:14:52:15 – 00:15:11:04
John Barker
Well, there’s no official action now about where of of Bruce Lee actually getting into a proper fight with the doctor on set. I know that Shannon Lee Bruce’s daughter, she was massively critical of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood when it came out, because she said that her dad would always avoid confrontation in real life. But again, it does seem like Tarantino was not totally pulled this thing out within a either.

00:15:11:06 – 00:15:40:11
John Barker
So in the film, Cliff fight with Bruce Lee is on the set of The Green Hornet, the TV series that Bruce Lee started on on that show. Apparently, Lee had a bit of a reputation for not pulling his punches with stunt performers, which didn’t go down well with the stunt team, obviously. And there’s a story about the stunt coordinator on The Green Hornet called Benny Dobbins bringing in another stunt man called Gene LaBelle to kind of bring Lee down a peg or two, because Gina Ballard was a judo expert, and apparently he scooped Lee up on the set and ran around with him in a fireman’s lift.

00:15:40:14 – 00:15:56:16
John Barker
I mean, that story when I came across it, it was told by Gene LaBelle himself. So make of it what you will. But I think it sounds like it’s almost certainly the seed for what Tarantino was doing with Cliff and Bruce Lee. So yet again, it’s a fictional scene, but based in something real. That’s kind of what he’s doing all the way through.

00:15:56:16 – 00:15:57:27
John Barker
I think.

00:15:57:29 – 00:16:16:03
Dan LeFebvre
Wow, wow. Yeah, yeah. I mean, in the movie you’re watching, I’m like, okay, there’s no way he’s going to be Bruce Lee. I mean, come on. But he makes he does it like like there’s nothing. And so I could see that almost, again coming from him, you know, putting it on his shoulders. So who knows if that’s actually true?

00:16:16:03 – 00:16:29:22
John Barker
I think it’s one of the I think one of the main reasons it gets criticized is because people don’t like the fact that the cliff seems to be able to beat Bruce Lee. And when the novelization of the book came out of the film came out, was written by Tarantino, maybe a few months a few years later in not.

00:16:29:22 – 00:16:40:28
John Barker
Apparently I’m not ready to, but apparently does make very clear in that scene that Bruce Lee is better than Cliff in the in the novelization version, whereas in the film it looks like Cliff get in the bedroom, doesn’t it?

00:16:41:01 – 00:16:46:04
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. No. Yeah it does. Yeah. Speaking of alternative histories, I guess.

00:16:46:10 – 00:16:49:03
John Barker
Yeah, yeah, let’s know the history of the old in the history.

00:16:49:06 – 00:17:13:15
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, speaking of actors, Margot Robbie, as we talk about her, her version of Sharon Tate is an actress in the movie. And at one point in the movie, we actually see her going to the Berman movie theater in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles to watch her own movie. That movie’s called The Wrecking Crew, and she really seems to just enjoy the audiences reaction to it.

00:17:13:17 – 00:17:18:02
Dan LeFebvre
Do we know if the real Sharon Tate went to go see her own movies like that?

00:17:18:04 – 00:17:35:19
John Barker
Again? There’s no definite records around Sharon doing exactly what we’re seeing. The film go into a cinema to watch yourself. So this is a scene where the film definitely isn’t like some documentary. It’s definitely a it’s definitely a reconstruction. It’s basically, I think, a nice day in the life of Sharon Tate. I think that’s what it’s meant to be, and I think it’s the nicest moment in the film.

00:17:35:19 – 00:17:53:27
John Barker
I really like it, but I know that Tarantino and Margot Robbie have both talked about how proud Sharon Tate was of her performance in that film, The Wrecking Crew. So it does come from that. I think, the Wrecking Crew footage on the screen, rather than replacing Sharon Tate with Robbie like you does. Oh yeah. In The Great Escape, Tarantino shows us the actual Wrecking Crew footage, the film.

00:17:53:27 – 00:18:13:27
John Barker
So I think that’s quite a classy touch to kind of see Sharon doing a thing. But something else interesting in that scene, actually based on reality, is when Sharon’s watching herself, she takes her shoes off and puts her feet up on the chair in front of her. The soles of the feet are really dirty. So Deborah Teach, Sharon’s sister that I mentioned, she said that the real Sharon would go barefoot everywhere she could.

00:18:14:00 – 00:18:33:29
John Barker
Like she never wore shoes at home and she go to restaurants barefoot as well. So her dirty feet in the film, that kind of comes from not in real life. Sharon Tate’s feet are probably washed quite a lot, so I think it’s a really subtle nod to that. I mean, as well, Tarantino has a bit of a reputation for liking the sure women in his films as well, so that might have been a bonus as far as he was concerned.

00:18:34:01 – 00:19:02:08
Dan LeFebvre
Well, again, because of the level of detail, a little things like that, like I would have never have known that without knowing that little detail about the real Sharon Tate and throwing that in or even, you know, using that, that footage in the film. I think when you’re mentioning that, you know, just a nice day in the life of Sharon Tate, I think that’s it’s a great way from you think of from a filmmaker’s perspective to you want to have this person be somebody that to foreshadow the coming events.

00:19:02:08 – 00:19:23:15
Dan LeFebvre
We know what’s going to happen to her. And so there’s got to be some sort of connection to her as a human being. And she’s also not one of the main characters, like we’re talking about Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth and movies, you know, focused on their story a lot. And so I can definitely see that this is a great, great way for Quentin Tarantino to humanize Sharon Tate on, on screen, give her her own.

00:19:23:18 – 00:19:36:23
John Barker
And that’s a big part of what he’s doing. Yeah. I mean, like, you see, with the events happening as it did in real life, when you first watch the film, you think you know what’s going to happen at the end. You think you know what’s coming all the way through, and you know, if it does happen, it’s going to be horrific.

00:19:36:26 – 00:19:52:15
John Barker
And that kind of dread is kind of vague with you all the time. I think Tarantino fully aware of that, and he plays with that all the way through. So when it comes at the end, he flips the expectation on its head. It’s really effective, and one of the ways he does that is to make us like Sharon a lot in this scene does that perfectly, I think.

00:19:52:17 – 00:20:10:07
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Yeah. Well, well we’ll talk about some of that way. The movie ends here in a little bit. But if we go back to the movie’s timeline, Cliff Booth knows a guy named George Spawn from when he works as Rick Dalton stunt double on the TV show we talked about a little bit ago called Bounty Law. They shot that TV show at Spawns Ranch course.

00:20:10:12 – 00:20:31:18
Dan LeFebvre
This is all according to the movie. And. But that was before the timeline of the movie. We don’t actually see much of that actually happening. But then in the movie, we see members of the Manson family living at Spahn Ranch, and spawn himself doesn’t really seem to remember Cliff Booth. It’s really kind of a funny scene there.

00:20:31:20 – 00:20:50:01
Dan LeFebvre
But then still, Booth thinks that spawn is being taken advantage of with the Manson Family members there. He doesn’t really know them as the Manson Family, but that’s what I’m referring them to. And maybe he is, but also, spawn seems to be blind. He’s an older man, and he kind of seems to be okay with the company.

00:20:50:03 – 00:21:05:24
Dan LeFebvre
We see. We hear names like, squeaky, Sadie, Tex, and of course, Charlie referring to Charles Manson. But then the movie just kind of assumes that you know who the real people were. So can you unravel this connection between the Manson Family and the Spahn Ranch?

00:21:05:26 – 00:21:24:14
John Barker
Yeah. So Spahn Ranch was a real place. It was a working ranch that had been used as a movie set for Westerns in the 40s, in the 50s, and it was owned by George Osborne. And by the late 60s, films weren’t being shot there anymore. And it was pretty rundown. And from what we know, Charles Manson arranged for the family to move in around 1968.

00:21:24:21 – 00:21:46:07
John Barker
So basically, in exchange for labor on the ranch and from George’s perspective, some companionship. I mean, how far that went, we don’t know. The one thing I want to know, to be honest, because George, he was about 80, he was going blindly with seeing the film as well. But yes, the Mansons did use Spahn Ranch as a base, basically on the name you mentioned there that we hear in the film, they are all real people, so squeaky.

00:21:46:09 – 00:22:07:09
John Barker
But the net from who in real life later attempted to assassinate Gerald Ford as well. So there’s there’s a spin off. She’s played by Dakota Fanning, Texas Charles Watson, played by Austin Butler. Sadie. Her real name was Susan Atkins. She’s played by Mickey Madsen. Pussycats. But Margaret Qualley is kind of you mentioned she’s based on two people called Ruthanne Moorehouse and Catherine, lead singer Catherine.

00:22:07:09 – 00:22:29:02
John Barker
Shooting. I was nicknamed Kitty cats, and that became Pussycats. Leslie Van Houten is played by Victoria Pedretti. Lena Dunham plays Catherine Scheer, known as Gypsy, and Sydney Sweeney is in there as Diane Lake. She was the youngest Manson to 2014 when she joined, and they’re not in this scene. But later on we see Patricia Krenwinkel, played by Madison Beatty, and Linda Kasabian, played by Maya Hawke.

00:22:29:08 – 00:22:53:08
John Barker
The daughter of Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke. And then, yeah, you mentioned Charlie, of course, as Charles Manson self. He’s played by Damon Herriman. He’d already played it. Charles Manson actually in Mindhunter. If you’ve seen that the TV series. Yeah, he played him in that. So of all the rules he got typecast in Charles Manson. I think what’s crazy, looking back at it now, is that most of these actors at the time were pretty much unknown, but now Lloyd’s I’m a Big Star is like Austin Butler.

00:22:53:08 – 00:23:16:28
John Barker
Mikey Madison is one of Oscar Margaret Qualley, Sydney Sweeney, Victoria Pedretti as well. I mean the casting director, Victoria Thomas. I think she had a bit of an eye for talent. But in terms of Spahn Ranch, by the time Tarantino came to me, the film, the real Spahn Ranch was gone. A fire destroyed it in like 1970, so the production designer was Barbara Ling, and she found the location about 20 minutes away from where the real ranch had been.

00:23:17:01 – 00:23:25:22
John Barker
And she and her team, like, reconstructed the whole thing from all four. The graphs. So it’s very accurate, apparently. I mean, it’s an incredible set.

00:23:25:24 – 00:23:48:12
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. That’s fascinating. It’s it’s it’s always crazy to me the extent that they’ll go like, here’s, a ranch, like, it’s it’s another movie, inception. It’s like it’s like movie ception, right? I mean, it’s, make, you know, this scene in this, TV show was on this ranch that then burned down, and now they’re making a movie about recreating the shit.

00:23:48:18 – 00:23:51:14
Dan LeFebvre
It’s just. Yeah, it’s just crazy. It’s. Yeah.

00:23:51:17 – 00:24:07:17
John Barker
It’s very media and all the time to about it quite heavily into The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when he was creating this, the whole set, just because he wanted to have that like wooden, ramshackle, eerie kind of feel that you get in Texas Chainsaw, which I think it very much does, because when Cliff, they’re looking for George, it’s very tense, isn’t it?

00:24:07:17 – 00:24:10:29
John Barker
And you can see the house in the distance and that kind of thing. It’s great.

00:24:11:02 – 00:24:22:00
Dan LeFebvre
Well, like you’re, you’re talking about, you know, Tarantino knows what we know about the history of this. And he’s using and playing with that because you know that okay. There’s something tense. There’s something off.

00:24:22:03 – 00:24:38:23
John Barker
But yeah. Exactly. It’s the first thing. Where would you say the mansons as soon as he gets to Spahn Ranch, you know, that’s where the mansons are. Straight away. The hairs in the in that go up because we know what they are. I’m gonna know what’s going to happen. So it’s like, what’s going to happen? Yeah. You I think when I first watched it, I’m assuming something’s going to happen here that leads the Mansons back to Cielo Drive.

00:24:38:23 – 00:24:45:04
John Barker
It doesn’t, but it’s it’s just got that ominous dread all the way into the film because you think you know what’s coming.

00:24:45:07 – 00:24:49:15
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. You just. Yeah. You’re just waiting for it to jump out at you. But you don’t know when it’s going to be.

00:24:49:22 – 00:24:51:20
John Barker
Exactly, exactly. Yeah.

00:24:51:22 – 00:25:10:16
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Well, if there is a point in the movie where I think it was specifically shifting away from historical events, it would be when, as the movie puts it, Charles Manson told his followers to quote, Go to Terry’s old house and kill everybody in there. And the house that they’re referring to in the movie is now owned by Sharon Tate and her husband, Roman Polanski.

00:25:10:18 – 00:25:30:15
Dan LeFebvre
But here’s where I think it changed from history, because once the Manson family members get there, Rick Dalton gets annoyed at their car being too loud. Is just idling on a private road. He comes out, start yelling at them to get out and leave. They recognize Dalton as an actor on Bounty Law, and then they decide to kill the actor who taught them how to kill.

00:25:30:18 – 00:25:42:24
Dan LeFebvre
So they end up going next door to kill Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth instead. And we’ll get to that scene next door in a moment. But in the true story was Polanski and Tate’s house the target for the Manson Family’s murders plans?

00:25:42:27 – 00:26:08:09
John Barker
Yes. It was 10050. Cielo drive was the address and that was the targets. So not Sharon Tate specifically. So Charles Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian, then the Kasabian, by the way, that’s where the band got their name from Kasabian. So they drove it on that nice 8th of August 1969. And the reason that specific address was chosen, according to many accounts, goes back to Terry Melcher, who had previously lived there.

00:26:08:16 – 00:26:23:28
John Barker
So Terry Melcher was a music producer who would consider signing Charles Manson as a musician. Because Manson finds himself at a bit of a fork singer songwriter. We actually had one of his songs in the film. It’s sung by the Manson girls in the first act, when they’re walking down the street. But Terry Melcher eventually passed on him and said no.

00:26:24:00 – 00:26:45:03
John Barker
And that rejection, some people say, was one of the things that kind of tipped Manson over the edge. And even stranger, Terry Melcher was the son of Doris Day, of all people. So that’s why, though, when Manson tend to beat Sharon’s, he says, Does Terry live here? He’s talking about Terry Melcher, and there’s other links as well, because one of the bands, Terry Melcher produced was Paul Revere and the Raiders, like 60s rock band.

00:26:45:06 – 00:27:03:00
John Barker
So that’s why Sharon mentions them in the film. And they also on the soundtrack, like five times. They’re all over it. And but yeah, the film has the mansons redirected to Rick’s house after they recognize him like the sea, but in reality they just went to Sharon’s and did what they did. Although they weren’t targeting Sharon Tate specifically, it was the house very much.

00:27:03:02 – 00:27:19:01
Dan LeFebvre
It was the okay, so it was that. So that kind of alludes to that in the movie when he talks about going to Terry’s old house. You talking about Terry Melcher? And that sounds like, again, another little detail that if you don’t know the history of it, you know, I mean, you might know the grand scale, but, you know, the details of like, who is Terry?

00:27:19:04 – 00:27:32:06
John Barker
Yeah. Well, exactly. You just mentioned Terry. But then when you look into that, it opens up this whole kind of, kind of worms of what Charles Manson relationship with Terry Melcher was and how there was this sort of contentions between them. Going back to the fact he didn’t sign he was a record producer. That’s what was all about.

00:27:32:06 – 00:27:35:26
John Barker
But I mentioned to all in the film, well, that’s kind of the reality of it.

00:27:35:29 – 00:27:54:00
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. So that was the the motive, because in the movie it makes it kind of sound like the motive for the murders. Again, they’re going next door and we’ll talk about that. But, you know, being next door, they recognize Rick as somebody who taught them how to kill. So there’s almost seems like this violence and these murders are kind of a form of retribution against the violence in TV.

00:27:54:00 – 00:28:02:05
Dan LeFebvre
So but it sounds like the motive then was more just Charles Manson not liking that he didn’t get signed by a record producer.

00:28:02:07 – 00:28:24:03
John Barker
Yeah, well, Manson’s motives are still very much debated because he never revealed them. He died in 2017, I think, and never actually said what the whole point of it all was. The most commonly believe version is that he wanted to create what he referred to as Helter Skelter, which was a race war that he believed to bring around the end of society in America with the Manson family surviving it and kind of taking power to an extent and the mood as a Cielo drive.

00:28:24:06 – 00:28:35:23
John Barker
The plan was they were going to blame those on black militants and kind of spark that race war and that conflict. So that was the overall motive for the murders. The reason they chose that house was Terry Melcher.

00:28:35:25 – 00:28:40:18
Dan LeFebvre
Okay. Okay. So the motive was something completely different than it was just, oh, this is,

00:28:40:20 – 00:28:42:07
John Barker
Yeah. Basically the more an.

00:28:42:07 – 00:28:43:11
Dan LeFebvre
Excuse to kick started.

00:28:43:16 – 00:28:59:22
John Barker
The wanted to cause chaos and murder people, like, on a killing spree. He had no one to kill. So we thought, well, let’s go to tumultuous house and Sharon and her friends were the people who were kind of there. They didn’t they didn’t know them at all. There was no connection whatsoever between Sharon Tate and the people there and the people who turned up that night.

00:28:59:24 – 00:29:01:08
John Barker
It was strangers.

00:29:01:10 – 00:29:04:26
Dan LeFebvre
Wow. That’s it. I mean, just horrific. And it.

00:29:04:26 – 00:29:10:28
John Barker
Is. It’s horrendous. Yeah. It’s true. I mean, I’m, I imagine just a shock of like, who are you? Who are you? What you’re doing here? It’s crazy.

00:29:11:03 – 00:29:33:19
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s there’s no connection there. And thinking of again we we get a lot from movies and TV shows and things like that. But we think of, you know, one of the in every movie or TV show, every detective, they’re always trying to piece together to find the motive. They’re trying to find, you know, what reason would somebody have to to kill this person?

00:29:33:19 – 00:29:42:09
Dan LeFebvre
And for people like Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, who correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m assuming they were pretty successful, kind of at the height of their careers.

00:29:42:12 – 00:29:43:18
John Barker
Oh yeah. Yeah.

00:29:43:21 – 00:29:46:25
Dan LeFebvre
So they would have a lot of motive, I would assume.

00:29:46:29 – 00:30:00:23
John Barker
Yeah. Well, what the motive was so thin and so sketchy that if not for some of the things that happened in which I think we might talk about a little bit, that would never have been caught because there was no reason. I mean, the different Morton’s and motive, the motive the Charles Manson had, he just didn’t seem to have one other witness head.

00:30:00:23 – 00:30:08:06
John Barker
He did, because he wasn’t quite a normal person. But there was nothing at all that would connect them to to Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski.

00:30:08:08 – 00:30:18:18
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Which makes it seem like, you know, from a detective’s point of view, that just has to be. It’s trying to wrap your head, trying to wrap your head around it when there’s no logical thing to wrap your head around it.

00:30:18:18 – 00:30:28:26
John Barker
Yeah, yeah. Well, when we we did when we did this episode a few months ago, I was in that position for about six months. Just like, what? What’s going on? How this all happened. It’s just crazy.

00:30:28:28 – 00:30:47:13
Dan LeFebvre
Speaking of crazy, before we go back to the movie, when the Manson family does attack, they attack Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth at their home, and there’s almost a comedic level of ultra violence. We get, Brad Pitt’s version of Booth again. He he had no problem handling Bruce Lee. He had no problem handling these. The home invaders.

00:30:47:15 – 00:31:08:10
Dan LeFebvre
Dalton’s in his pool listening music so he doesn’t hear the fighting going on until one of the women breaks through the glass, falls into the pool. Fortunately, Dalton just happens to have a fully functioning flamethrower that he used in the movie, so he uses that as you do. So he uses that against the attacker. Again, correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like I see that a lot.

00:31:08:17 – 00:31:15:22
Dan LeFebvre
But I’m just assuming that none of this happened like what we see in the movie. So can you share what really happened when the Manson family attacked?

00:31:15:25 – 00:31:35:20
John Barker
Yeah. Well, yeah. No flamethrowers. Unfortunately. No acid cigarets or Brandy Cliff’s dog. But you know what really happened that night? I mean, it is genuinely horrifying. After we did our episode and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, certain things in my head for weeks afterwards, that stuff’s out there. If people want to go and look for it. But maybe we shouldn’t go into that in detail because it is that bad.

00:31:35:22 – 00:31:55:25
John Barker
But there are some less graphic details based on the reality of that night I can talk about. So the people in Sharon’s house that night were Sharon. She was eight and a half months pregnant. Gina Sebring, who was a celebrity hairdresser. Abigail Folger. She was heiress of the Folger Coffee Company, and Voytek Frykowski. It was Abigail’s boyfriend, so they were all in the film.

00:31:55:27 – 00:32:14:06
John Barker
But there was also a fifth victim, so an 18 year old called Steven Parent was sitting outside Sharon’s house in his car when the Mansons arrived, and Charles Watson shot him dead. But Steven Parent, he’s not in the film at all. And the film threw on the film. No, that didn’t happen. I think that’s very much Tarantino living out the fairytale that he kind of wishes would go out.

00:32:14:10 – 00:32:16:12
John Barker
And maybe we all do to an extent.

00:32:16:15 – 00:32:31:08
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. It’s again, it reminds me of, Inglourious Basterds with the way that ended, just like this is when I. When I watch both of those Tarantino movies, I’m like, okay, this is what Tarantino wanted to happen. This is his alternative version of of how.

00:32:31:08 – 00:32:43:21
John Barker
This is exactly what it is. Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. I mean, a very clever thing that he called a Once Upon a Time in Hollywood because he’s telling us before you even see the film, this is a fairy tale if I’m going to be real. But you would. So you’re telling your friend that the flips are going to come.

00:32:43:21 – 00:32:49:01
John Barker
But like I said earlier, I think it works a lot better here than it does in Inglorious Bastards.

00:32:49:04 – 00:33:11:09
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah. Well, you you mentioned some of the names and, something that we see near the end of the movie is it follows a very pregnant Sharon Tate kind of follows her routine. On the evening of August 8th, 1969, her husband, Roman Polanski, is preparing movie in London. So he’s not in the picture, but, she’s with, one of his old friends from Poland, Voytek Rakowski.

00:33:11:09 – 00:33:29:14
Dan LeFebvre
You mentioned, along with his girlfriend Abigail Folger and Jay Sebring, and the movie’s showing his time. So at 7 p.m., the group goes to a Mexican restaurant called El Coyote. At 10:16 p.m., they leave the restaurant to go back home to where they hang out at home until a little after midnight, when the Manson Family members attack Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth next door.

00:33:29:16 – 00:33:49:06
Dan LeFebvre
We already talked about that, but the way the movie outlines this with Sharon Tate’s evening, it’s showing a specific time. Jul ten, 16 p.m.. It makes me think that perhaps you’re following what really happened with Sharon Tate and her friends on August 8th, 1969. How closely did the movie follow the actual timeline for Tate and her friends?

00:33:49:08 – 00:34:06:12
John Barker
Yeah, you’re right, it’s very, very close. The group she was with, or you mentioned they’re the people she was with that night. El coyote was a real restaurant in L.A. that they went to for dinner that evening. It’s still there, actually. And the times in the film, 7 p.m. dinner, leaving just after ten. They’re taken from accounts from the time.

00:34:06:14 – 00:34:22:25
John Barker
And then also in the film, we see Abigail Folger at the piano and Sharon singing Straight Shooter by the Mamas and the Papas. That’s in there because when the police arrived the next day, they found the sheet music to that song on the piano like it had just been used. And also in the film we see Voytek Frykowski go to sleep on the couch.

00:34:23:02 – 00:34:40:01
John Barker
Creer also mentions that in the narration, that did really happen because he was woken up by Charles Watson pointing a gun in his face, and Watson said to him, I’m the devil and I’m here to do the devil’s business. And that lines in the film as well. But Tex says it to Cliff instead. So yeah, lots of things in there based on reality catering to you.

00:34:40:04 – 00:34:46:15
John Barker
I’d done the history, not the research from not just the film history, but the whole murder side of it as well.

00:34:46:17 – 00:34:47:15
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, yeah.

00:34:47:17 – 00:35:03:04
John Barker
Yeah. But that whole sequence that you’re talking about, where that kind of montage sequence where Claire whistles, narrating the events and you’ve got, baby, you’re out of Time by the Rolling Stones playing in the background. Baby, you’re out of time with pictures of Sharon on the screen. And with that narration. This happened at 6 p.m.. This happened at 7 p.m..

00:35:03:04 – 00:35:13:03
John Barker
You sitting there thinking, oh my God, it’s coming, it’s coming. Yeah. So that’s how you feel first time you see it and but now obviously doesn’t. And talking to you another he’s like he’s like oh you’re in the palm of his hand. He’s great.

00:35:13:05 – 00:35:24:03
Dan LeFebvre
What was there anything in the movie that we haven’t talked about yet that suits you is either being historically inaccurate or maybe the exact opposite. Was there anything that stood out to you is accurate the way they depicted it in the movie?

00:35:24:10 – 00:35:42:23
John Barker
Yeah, a couple of things. There’s a few things around Sharon we haven’t talked about. There’s a scene where she goes to a bookstore and buys Tess of the d’Urbervilles. That’s in there, because the last interaction in real life that Sharon ever had with a Roman Polanski was she gave him Tess of the d’Urbervilles as a gift. So that’s a nice little nod to their kind of relationship.

00:35:42:26 – 00:35:58:07
John Barker
There’s another ones in the first, like their own showing as well. The first thing would probably say her in the film. She’s on the way to that party, the Playboy Mansion with Roman Polanski, and she’s wearing a snakeskin coat that’s based on a cord that the real Sharon wore to the premiere of Rosemary’s Baby. What a Polanski’s most famous films.

00:35:58:09 – 00:36:15:18
John Barker
Pictures from that. On the inaccurate side in that scene, actually, the Playboy Mansion. Hugh Hefner didn’t actually buy that place until 1971, so two years after the film says so, the timing doesn’t work. But yeah, it’s there for the atmosphere. So. And it’s cool. So kind of a good kind of find to forgive it. And we mentioned Spahn Ranch as well earlier on.

00:36:15:24 – 00:36:40:19
John Barker
But there’s more great production design as well, because Barbara Ling and her team basically recreated Hollywood Boulevard as it was in 1969. We see a wedding cliff drives down in the first ox, and then Sharon walks down the later on the way to the theater. So what they did was it. Tarantino’s production team approached businesses based on Hollywood Boulevard at the time, and asked if they would let them change their facades to show how they would have looked in 1969 for free.

00:36:40:22 – 00:36:51:12
John Barker
And after filming, most of the stores apparently said, no, just keep it as it is. I don’t want change it back because I prefer the oh look. So like a free Hollywood makeover for your shop. That’s not a bad deal.

00:36:51:14 – 00:36:55:04
Dan LeFebvre
Probably have a lot of tourists coming to and expecting to see it the way it is in the movie, right?

00:36:55:05 – 00:37:00:11
John Barker
Exactly. I’d much prefer that. Yeah, it looks great. It was shot some incredible.

00:37:00:13 – 00:37:02:17
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah. Free. Yeah. Free makeover.

00:37:02:20 – 00:37:04:07
John Barker
Exactly.

00:37:04:09 – 00:37:29:16
Dan LeFebvre
Well, as we wrap up our discussion today for my audience that loves to learn about the true story behind movies, your podcast is perfect place for them to learn more of the true story from the movie making side of thing. I’ve got a link to your show called All the Right Movies in the show notes. I encourage anyone listening to this to cue it up right next, before I let you go, can you share a bit more about your podcast and do you have an episode that you would recommend someone check out first?

00:37:29:19 – 00:37:44:02
John Barker
Yeah, thanks. On the episode, like you say, the show is called All the Right Movies. We have an episode of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. If anyone wants to dive deeper on that, it’s not just me on the show, it’s the four of us in total. And our tagline is the story of Hollywood, one film at a time.

00:37:44:02 – 00:38:03:09
John Barker
So the idea behind it is that every episode we take one like significant film until the complete story of it. So like how it was made, whether it works as a piece of filmmaking and why it matters in the overall story of Hollywood. I mean, we go really deep. I might have a laugh or two as we go as well, so hopefully it’s entertaining, but it’s typically around 2.5 hours per episode.

00:38:03:09 – 00:38:19:17
John Barker
So like real long form stuff and we put about a hundred of hours working between us as a team as well. So it’s a big old task making an episode. So yeah, we’ve done Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a popular one recently with Lord of the rings, the first roll of the rings film that was like three hours in length because the production of it is so massive.

00:38:19:17 – 00:38:36:20
John Barker
So. And that’s a very popular film, might be a good place to start. We’re also in process of writing a book, actually. That’s called All the Right Movies and Tell the Making of Stories Behind 25 Classic Films of Joe in September, and it will be on preorder very soon. So if anyone’s interested, keep an eye on this for us.

00:38:36:22 – 00:38:51:29
John Barker
And I mean, yeah, we’d love for your audience to check us out. You can find us wherever you get podcasts or the normal places Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube or websites with all the why movies.com, and we’re across all the social channels as well. We’re very big on next. So yeah, we’d love to see people coming along and joining in with the community.

00:38:51:29 – 00:38:53:24
John Barker
We’re growing.

00:38:53:26 – 00:38:56:27
Dan LeFebvre
I’ll have all those links in the show notes. So yeah, nice for people to check it out.

00:38:57:00 – 00:38:57:09
John Barker
Thank you.

00:38:57:09 – 00:38:58:15
Dan LeFebvre
Thanks again so much for your time, John.

00:38:58:22 – 00:39:00:10
John Barker
No problem. Thanks, Dunn. Nice speaking to you.