The Weinstein Company
While Marvel Studios is largely given credit for popularizing the shared universe method of modern filmmaking, it was, in fact, Quentin Tarantino who has been utilizing the idea for the entirety of his career.
Red Apple cigarettes. The Vega Brothers. Earl and Edgar McGraw. The Donowitz family. All of these rotating hints and nods have popped up in all of Tarantino’s films throughout the course of his career, and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood includes more of the same.
Warning: spoilers for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood will follow.
Despite the fact that Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is largely different than the rest of Quentin Tarantino’s filmography, the usual references to his shared universe are certainly there, most notably at the start of the film’s third act when Leo DiCaprio’s character Rick Dalton heads to Italy to star in Spaghetti Westerns in an effort to rehabilitate his waning career.
As the narrator is explaining the spaghetti westerns that Dalton has gone on to star in, one of them is helmed by an Italian director named Antonio Margheriti.
Antonio Margheriti is not only obviously a reference to Inglourious Basterds, but a nod to one of the film’s funniest scenes.
During the premiere of Nation’s Pride at Shosanna Dreyfus’ theater, Germany movie star and spy for the Allies Bridget von Hammersmark is accompanied by Aldo Raine, Donny Donowitz, and Omar Ulmer, who are all pretending to be Italian.
When the group crosses paths with the supremely villainous Hans Landa, the Colonel asks them each to pronounce their names to verify the legitimacy of their Italian accents, forcing Donowitz to pronounce his fake name — Antonio Margheriti — several times.
While Antonio Margheriti is used as an alias in the film, there was actually a very real Spaghetti Western-directing Italian with the same name. Enzo Gorlami, on the other hand, is strictly a figment of Tarantino’s imagination.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD, Quentin’s Tarantino’s ninth feature film, is currently in theaters.
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