Quentin Tarantino Shares The Films That Inspired 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,' Programs Them At The New Beverly Theater

Quentin Tarantino is in publicity overdrive for his upcoming Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. The famous filmmaker (and film fan) owns the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, and he's programmed a line-up of movies that served as inspiration for his latest opus. To help promote both the new movie and the July programming at the New Bev, Tarantino joined the Pure Cinema Podcast and talked for nearly three hours.

If you ever wanted to sit back and listen to Quentin Tarantino talk a lot about movies, the new episode of the Pure Cinema Podcast is for you. The filmmaker wanted to talk about the films that helped inspire his upcoming Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – films that will be playing at the New Beverly Cinema all month. As the official copy for the line-up states, the movies focus "on leading men of [Once Upon a Time in Hollywood] main character Rick Dalton's era, mixed with films featuring groovy '60s 'It' girls."

A calendar of the full line-up is below.

In addition to the films that inspired it, Tarantino also took time to talk about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood itself.

"I did that '60s kinda thing, but now I wanted to get more into the interior of the Hollywood that this movie is discussing," Tarantino told the podcast (via IndieWire). Regarding Leonardo DiCaprio's Hollywood character Rick Dalton, Tarantino said:

"He's a bit like George Maharis, he's a bit like Edd Byrnes, he's a bit like Tab Hunter, he's a bit like Fabian, he's a bit like Vince Edwards. These are all guys that were handsome kind of he man, leading, Ty Hardin, a certain kind of leading man that were handsome and most of them were kinda rugged. They spent their careers running pocket combs through their pompadours. And then all of a sudden, ... and now the leading men are these long shaggy haired androgynous types, so it's like Michael Sarrazin, Peter Fonda the young Michael Douglas, skinny androgynous, Arlo Guthrie is starring in movies, the hippie sons of famous people, and if Rick's gonna get a part in a movie with them he's probably gonna be the cop thats busting them."

Going deeper into the Rick Dalton character backstory, Tarantino added (via EW):

"Rick had a very successful NBC series called Bounty Law. It started [in] the '58-'59 season and ended in the '63-'64 season. It came out the same season as Steve McQueen came out with Wanted Dead or Alive, and they're pretty much identical shows. McQueen on Wanted Dead or Alive played a slim, cocksure bounty hunter named Josh, and on Bounty Law Rick Dalton played a slim, cocksure bounty hunter named Jake. And they were both equally popular on television for the time and the fan magazines played up the rivalry: 'Josh or Jake, who's the biggest hunk? We let our readers decide!' He became quite popular and, like McQueen, during his hiatus, started doing movies... And they did okay, but during McQueen's hiatus, eventually, he did The Magnificent Seven, and that was that. So, when [McQueen] goes back to his series, to finish his last season... he's a fucking movie star. Rick is still Jake... He doesn't pull off the TV-to-movies transition."

Steve McQueen appears as a character in Hollywood, played by Damian Lewis.

As someone who lives nowhere near LA, I remain eternally jealous of anyone who has the opportunity to head to the New Beverly this month, or any month, really. Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and a whole bunch of other people, hits theaters July 26.