Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: The First Novel By Quentin Tarantino (A Phoenix paperback, 3691)

Loved the movie and the book is just as good! I like that it’s slightly for in depth.

Such a great book with extra details and back-stories that you don’t get in the movie that’s really easy to read… if you liked the movie, you will love the book😉

Having seen the film a couple of times I enjoyed this book as it fills in further character details left out of the film script. I particularly liked the back story of Cliff – in the book we discover he is a genuine WW2 hero with purple heart medals etc. As in the film, there is a commentary voice over explaining to you the reader what is going on. The best example (and I hope this isn’t a spoiler) is when Cliff comes back to the states, meets up with an old girlfriend (who is also a girlfriend to the local mafia mob boss) and they go to a pizza parlour. Two mafia thugs confront him, he asks are they Eyetalians, because he got this here purple heart for killing scores of Eyetalians back in a place called Sicily. He then shows them his gun and states that he could probably shoot them both in front of all the restaurant witnesses and no one would give a damn. They don’t take the threat seriously and he promptly shoots them both dead. The commentary continues…. Well the local police, being aware that Cliff is an honest to god war hero with a medal and all, take the view that if he wants to shoot a couple of mafia thugs in their jurisdiction then that’s all right with them and hell they’ll even pay for the pizza! You’ve got to admit, that is classic Tarantino 😊

As someone who is a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino, I was really excited to read his debut novel. Even if it is just a novelization of the film.But I was pleasantly surprised by it, the dialogue is brilliant, as with all of Tarantino’s movies. However, the book lacks an overall structure and there isn’t much of a plot to speak of. I see the book more as a complimentary piece to the movie. You learn so much about the characters in the movie, and their back stories really help to flesh them out. Another positive was that we get to see a lot more of the Manson family in the book than we do in the movie. Particularly Pussycat’s story. The chapters about the tv pilot are some of the best. They add more depth to the scenes in the film. Overall, I was thought it was a veryentertaining read. I could totally see myself reading it again some time. Reading the novelization only adds to the experience of watching it after finishing the book. Because it isn’t just a copy and paste from the movie, there is some depth to it. The narrative style is very readable and engaging. Apart from the endless list of movies mentioned in the first fifty pages or something . If you enjoyed the movie, I can’t recommend this enough. If you haven’t seen it, the book might appear a little disjointed. Personally, I thought the backstories were believable and fitting. I’d love to see a novelization of The Hateful Eight or Django in the future.

Great book to read especially if you have seen the film too

As a novel, Once is packaged as a film tie-in, with eight stills from the movie on the cover and information about the film preceding the text. Set in Hollywood 1969, the book contains two types of material. Firstly, with echoes of a buddy movie, it tells the stories of Rick Dalton, a fading TV western star, and Cliff Booth, his stuntman and hired help. Secondly, and the novel’s real subject, it tells about Hollywood. Both are braided into the Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate and Charles Manson stories, a background and sometimes foreground that darkens the tone. With two different but overlapping types of material, the text can feel like two different books spliced together, with its plot delayed and half-buried under excessive context. As a novel, Once feels like a loosely structured draft. Yet the excess of information that contributes to this looseness is often interesting in itself, especially for movie buffs and fans of Hollywood history. Insider knowledge provides definitions of terms like “ringer” (203) and “tagging” (204) and there are multiple descriptions of procedures on a film set. Much of the special knowledge is gossip about the sex lives and alcohol consumption of once-famous names now safely dead, which presumably protects the author from any legal action. Hollywood gossip is a saleable commodity with a history as old as Hollywood, and the combination of insider knowledge and gossip makes for “a good education in what the entertainment business is like” (164), a phrase which could be a subtitle for Tarantino’s novel. Of course, reliance on the ephemera of popular culture has its risks. TV, movies and pop music have their appeal, which may include nostalgia, but they do tend to age and disappear. For an audience that has never seen Gunsmoke or Bonanza, would reference to them make sense? The novel Once, and even Tarantino’s films, may be generation-dependent. The argument about the meaning of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” in Reservoir Dogs, or comment on the Delfonics in Jackie Brown, is probably a niche interest even to an audience contemporary with the film. A film or book that depends heavily on popular culture has a built-in half-life. Yet Tarantino is also knowledgeable about the less ephemeral, and Cliff Booth’s extended riff on foreign film (30ff), especially Kurosawa, suggests a wealth of knowledge that would make non-fiction books by Tarantino about film a superb read. Once is a blend of fiction and non-fiction, a 400-page text informed, perhaps over-informed, by insider knowledge of the film industry, its history and characters. The book has a raw vigour, with interesting themes like ambition and personal and business relations among people in a cut-throat industry. Its main fictional characters, Rick and Cliff, are interesting and sympathetic enough that we care about them, and the ending where “Rick realizes how fortunate he is and was” to be a film and TV actor, to be paid for “pretending to be a cowboy” (399), convinces. It’s as if Once says, look at all this mess of greed, vanity and dishonesty, and talent—the movie business—and yet, isn’t it wonderful? The reader may think of Sam Goldwyn’s claim that film is “the greatest near-art form of the twentieth century,” and agree.

Gives a new depth to a stunning movie. Cliff Booth sequel needed

Goes deeper than the movie. If you loved it, you'll really love this!

Libro letto tutto d'un fiato (versione in lingua originale inglese). Se amate il cinema di Tarantino e soprattutto se avete amato Once upon a time in Hollywood, non lasciatevi scappare questo libro. È una perfetta integrazione in parole di quanto avete visto al cinema.

Great book! If you loved the movie, you'll also like the book.

"Master Quentin" en todo su esplendor. Quentin es un escritor hecho y derecho. Divertido, inteligente y con mucha profundidad. Magnífica lectura.

****Possible Spoilers***** The book about Rick Dalton, Clif Booth and Mirabella's story simply kills. When I watched the movie I knew it was an interwoven story that was not complete. I hear original cut of the movie was very long. I wished I could watch it somehow. But the releasing it as a booki was really a great idea. The book does 3 things in a great manner, it does explore more of Cliff Booth, it talks a lot about those 60'sTV shows and 60's Hollywood and until the last chapter the chemistry between Rick Dalton and Mirabella is taken to new heights. To me, I liked last chapter the best. Also, while book has some mention of movie incidents, the book is totally different. Loved it!! The vivid description of western tv shows made me wish he makes Bounty Law as his 10th movie or I will even be okay if he makes remake of Lancer!!! Tarantino starts his career a novelist with a bang!!