Tarantino’s 9 Essential Swinging Sixties Movies that inspired Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

The Details…

To celebrate the release of Sony Movie’s Once Upon A Time In… Hollywood, directed by Quentin Tarantino, Sony Movie Channel presents a whole week of classic films selected by the director himself. Tarantino will bring his limitless knowledge and love for movies, acting as host for signature films that influenced him during the production of his new film.

Tarantino had been let loose on the Sony archives, and will introduce 9 films across 7 days, including a diverse range of Hollywood classics, cult films, and retro B- movies, all harking back to L.A. and the summer of love.

Interstitial segments featuring specially created conversations between Tarantino and noted film writer and historian Kim Morgan will accompany each film, along with a first look at scenes from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

”Sony Pictures made their Columbia Pictures catalogue available to me so that I could select a series of films representative of the era in which Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is set, The Swinging Sixties. I am thrilled to host these movies so we can enjoy them together,” said Quentin Tarantino.

Running from Monday 5th August – Sunday 11th August, films screening are…

Model Shop

Getting Straight

Arizona Raiders

Gunman’s Walk

Hammerhead

Easy Rider

Cactus Flower

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

The Wrecking Crew

The Wrecking Crew stands out for martial artists because of the involvement of Bruce Lee in the film and in training the actors. In 1968, Stirling Silliphant recommended Bruce Lee to be the fight choreographer for Columbia Pictures’ upcoming film – “The Wrecking Crew” (1968) which starred Dean Martin, Elke Sommer, Sharon Tate and Nancy Kwan. Directed by Phil Karlson.

The fourth and final film in a series of Matt Helm adventures with Dean as the comedy super spy (An early Austin Powers). As with the previous three Helm spy movies “The Silencers,” “Murderers’ Row” and “The Ambushers”, they were based loosely upon Donald Hamilton’s 1960s novels.

In The Wrecking Crew Bruce Lee was credited as “Karate Adviser. The film had several big fight scenes, so Bruce Lee brought in his martial arts friends Mike Stone, Ed Parker and Joe Lewis to make the fight scenes look more realistic and crucially gave Chuck Norris his first break in movies.

Bruce’s main job was to prepare each actor to fight with realism, but he encountered some problems during the shooting. He tried to teach Dean Martin how to kick but it became clear that he was too lazy and clumsy to perform intricate martial arts moves so suggested his stand-in Mike Stone do them for him.

Since Columbia had hired Bruce to assist Sharon and Nancy in the martial arts scenes of the movie, the women wanted to prepare themselves and look good fighting on-screen. Weeks before shooting the film “The Wrecking Crew,” Sharon Tate (who already knew Bruce for several years) requested he coach her privately on a one-to-one basis so that she could learn some relevant self-defence techniques and martial arts skills in better preparation for the upcoming fighting scenes.

This is how it was shot, clearly techniques and styles have changed a lot;

The movie comes out on the 26th of July six days after Mr Lee’s premature death 46 years ago. The Little Dragon truly lives on.

The film stars Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio as a famous television actor and his long-time friend and stuntman, and is set in 1969 Los Angeles. The two men try to break into the Hollywood movie business around the same time of Sharon Tate’s murder.

Sony is set to release “Hollywood” in theatre’s July 26, 2019. It’s here right now on Blu Ray; Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

The film features the iconic Luke Perry, who shot to fame in Beverley Hills 90210, who tragically died in March 2019. RIP

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