So you guys really seemed to like it when we did that Pulp Fiction 8 bit, a lot.
So on today's episode of Things You Didn't Know,
we're taking a page from Hollywood's playbook.
We're taking something that worked once, and then doing it again and
again until it's ruined completely. >> Allen.
>> With that, here are nine things you
didn't know about Pulp Fiction.
Probably.
(Music)
>> 20 years after Pulp Fiction was released Jules' monologue before he
executes Brett, remains one of the most memorable moments in movie history.
Even though, Jules claims he memorized Ezekiel 25:17 in the scene,
almost none of his speech is actually found in the real Bible passage.
>> I lay my fingers upon thee.
>> A few key phrases at the end are,
indeed, lifted from Ezekiel.
But everything else Jules says is gospel straight from the book of Tarantino,
also known as a Pulp Fiction screenplay.
(Sound) We all remember hearing Vincent talk
about his '64 Malibu getting keyed in the movie.
But you probably didn't know that Vince's car actually
belonged to Quentin Tarantino in real life.
Unfortunately for Quintin the car was stolen during production.
The Malibu resurfaced in 2013,
twenty years later when police arrested a couple of teenagers who were stripping it.
They researched the VIN number and
figured out it was Tarantino's car from all those years ago.
(Sound) Aside from the Malibu,
another noteworthy item that appears in Pulp Fiction is Jules's wallet.
>> Which one is it?
>> It's the one that says
bad motherfucker. >> Well,
the real badass motherfucker was apparently Quentin Tarantino.
It was his wallet which he gave to Samuel L.
Jacskon to use in the movie.
See, my wallet says "please not the face" on it",
which would've played a little differently in the movie.
(Sound) Wallets aside, the most important prop
in the entire movie would have to be the mysterious briefcase.
To this day there's a pretty nice chunk of the Internet devoted to theories on what's
inside of it.
Whether you think it's diamonds or drugs, or
you're in the camp that thinks it's Marsellus Wallace's soul.
You're all right.
In an interview with Howard Stern, Tarantino eventually revealed that
the contents of the briefcase are whatever the viewer wants it to be.
Personally, I've always figured it was Gwyneth Paltrow's head.
And for those of you who aren't fans of using your imagination,
we also know what was literally in the briefcase, two batteries and a light bulb.
(Sound) Tying into the different briefcase
theories, there has also been plenty of speculation about what the deal is
the Band-Aid on the back of Marcellus' neck and
how it relates to the briefcase or the overall story.
Sorry, guys, but it turns out that the bandage has no meaning.
Ving Rhames had just cut himself while he was shaving his head.
Tarantino like the look of the Band-Aid and decided to run with it.
He felt it made Rhames' character seem more mercurial, so much so
that it inspired him to make sure we meet Marsellus' Band-Aid before we ever
see his face.
(Sound) It's not easy to make it funny for
a guy to get shot in the face, but Pulp Fiction manages to do just that when poor
Marvin's head gets turned into a Jackson Pollock painting.
But I'll bet you didn't know that Marvin was originally supposed to be shot twice.
Vince was supposed to shoot Marvin in the throat accidentally and
then would have to shoot him again in the head as a mercy kill to end his suffering.
Eventually it was decided that making it one accidental kill shot
would play a lot funnier and keep Vince a lot more likable.
By the way, actor Phil LaMarr, who played Marvin,
wasn't even around when they filmed the scene.
They built a dummy Marvin that was rigged to blow brain chunks out
the back of his head.
The dummy is also the body we see in the trunk of the car, which now that I'm
looking at it, definitely looks like a dummy in the trunk of a car.
(Sound) >> As long as we're talking about bullets,
remember the scene with Alexis Arquette and his real really, really terrible aim?
(Sound) Yeah, well, you probably didn't notice that the bullet holes in
the wall are there before a single shot is fired.
I'm not a big gun guy but
I'm pretty sure that's not how bullets are supposed to work.
(Sound) When Pulp Fiction was still
in the casting phase, John Travolta went to Quentin Tarantino's apartment to talk
about the role of Vince and definitely, definitely not to talk about massages.
(Sound) To Travolta's surprise, when he arrived at Tarantino's address,
he'd arrived at his old apartment from years before.
Travolta had rented the exact same place back when he first moved to Hollywood.
He lived there until he got his big break on Welcome Back, Kotter.
Even though it went on to be the number one top grossing independent
film of its time, Pulp Fiction was made for a pretty modest $8.5 million.
>> The only way to do that was for
all the big stars like Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman to take pay cuts.
Producer Lawrence Bender figured the fairest thing to do was to pay
all the stars the same amount, which wound up being $20,000 a week.
Most of us don't live in a universe where $20,000 a week is a pay cut, but
let's just move on before I get very depressed.
For example, John Travolta worked on the film for seven weeks so
he only made 140,000 dollars.
But don't feel too bad for the Pulp Fiction cast.
The major stars also had points on the film's profits which wound up being $214
million worldwide which translates to a lot of Kahuna burgers.
>> Mm-hm.
This is a tasty burger. >> Well, these are all of our things for
this episode but leave a comment if you have some other Pulp Fiction trivia or
if there is another movie you'd like to see on the show.
We'll get our team of interns to start researching.
(Laugh) I'm just kidding.
We're not allowed to have any interns until those charges get dropped.
Thanks for watching and subscribe to CineFix for
more truish things about movies right here on Things You Didn't Know.
(Sound)