Sunday, June 23, 2013

Know What I Heard the Other Day?

This is a slightly obscure bit of Reservoir Dogs, but it illustrates one of the aspects that makes Tarantino entertaining.  Mr Pink asks offhandedly after Mr. Brown's disquisition on Madonna's Like a Virgin (something we learn in the original script was Mr Pink's speech):
                        MR. PINK
                 No, I can't.  You know what I
                 heard the other day?  "Heartbeat -
                 It's Lovebeat," by little Tony
                 DeFranco and the DeFranco Family.
                 I haven't heard that since I was
                 in fifth fuckin grade.

If you're expecting that song to be more like the other Seventies' songs on the song track, you couldn't be more wrong.  Tony DeFranco and the DeFranco Family was a sort of Osmonds knockoff which managed a couple hits and shot little Tony into the teen idol stratosphere where Donnie and David orbited for a time.  I can't decide if Tarantino just really liked the song (which is sort of catchy) or just wants to undercut Mr. Pink  and set up his obnoxious rant on tipping. In any case, feast your ears (if you dare) on the DeFranco family in all their 70s glory.  I actually missed this tune at the time it came out (I'd moved onto FM music by that time I imagine--when wavelength still defined musical style), but have heard it more recently and just didn't realize it had popped up in RD until I watched it again for the class.  

2 comments:

  1. Very interesting!

    One thing I've learned in this class and others I've taken that take a look at film and media is that everything can be interpreted to have meaning. In this case, Mr. Pink is shown in this film to be cheap (his take on tipping), a chicken (only robber left alive at the end), and of course he has a strong urge to be seen as a professional!

    Since the music he mentions is essentially early boyband, which is not the most manly genre of music, possibly this is an early indication of the type of character we will be observing in this film?

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  2. Here is another interesting Reservoir Dogs tidbit, this one is about Lawrence Tierney getting into a fistfight with Tarantino.
    http://www.cracked.com/article_20487_the-5-most-hilarious-actor-meltdowns-behind-famous-movies_p2.html

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