Family Once Upon A Time

Ennio Morricone’s work on The Hateful Eight aside, most of Quentin Tarantino’s movies famously don’t have much in the way of traditional scores. The songs that have played a starring role in so many of his iconic scenes aren’t original compositions—they’re vintage gems, often dug up from the crates by the director himself. The music from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, captured on this soundtrack, is a prime example. Like the film itself, the songs—from José Feliciano’s cover of “California Dreamin’” to Vanilla Fudge’s take on “You Keep Me Hangin’ On”—are a time capsule of late-’60s Los Angeles, tracks Tarantino himself heard on the radio growing up in the city’s South Bay region (although there are, as usual for the director, lots of deeper cuts, like The Box Tops’ “Choo Choo Train”).

Legendary Italian director Sergio Leone made six important films during his career, five of which were westerns. The exception was his final film, Once Upon a Time in America, which instead explored the cinematic mythology of American organized crime. It proved to be the best film of his career, slightly better than The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and significantly better than his most acclaimed project, Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). Based upon Harry Grey's novel "The Hoods", Once Upon a Time in America depicts the rise and fall of a group of Jewish gangsters. As with The Godfather (1971), the story takes place in New York City, but the gang is formed from childhood friends rather than family members. Many elements are similar to both films: corrupt policemen, betrayal of fellow gang members, and the gradual transformation of the innocent and idealistic into hardened criminals.