I cry every time


When I first saw this in the theatre, I cried like a baby at the end. I have watched it many, many times since then and still cry every time.

If only…

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I don't cry at it, but I think the movie rather painfully creates "two tracks" of narrative and emotion in the final half hour.

We reach August 8, 1969 and we KNOW(if we know our modern history) that this is the night that Sharon Tate and her friends Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Voytek Frykowski would meet their horrible murders from the guns and(worse) knives of the Manson Family.

So we watch the four of them have dinner at a Mexican restaurant(with Sharon "melancholy from the August heat and her pregnancy), KNOWING they will die, see them at home -- Abigail playing the piano, Voyek watching the "Seymour" horror movie on TV and Sharon in her sexy maternity nightie -- KNOWING they will die And we feel the reality of these final hours in their lives.

...and then the great big wonderful twist arrives -- an "alternate version" in which not only do Cliff(mainly), his dog, and Rick kill off the Mansons, but Sharon and Jay have no idea it might have been their problem instead.

Its a happy ending that turns sad when we remember what REALLY happened. And that gives the movie quite a sting.

And this: the movie presents Sharon Tate pretty much all the way through as a sweet, kind, "younger than her years" presence -- almost always interested simply in dancing and partying -- and one gets the message: the victim of this horrible murder wasn't anybody particularly deep or profound, she was a very pretty Hollywood starlet and party girl. History gave her an importance she probably never intended to have. Me, I figure that Polanski was already cheating on her, there would have been a divorce even with the child, and Roman and Sharon would have met new lovers and spouses for new lives.

Didn't happen.

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Enjoyed your post.

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Thank you!

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you must be old and lived in this day & time to be so connected

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I was alive at the time but not old enough to remember anything. I was born about five weeks before the murders.

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I wasn’t born yet but I do get emotional every time I watch the ending also. Not just because of the Tate connection to actual history and its redirection here, but the changing of our two main characters lives in a positive way because of them stopping the killers.

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I was a teenager at the time of the murders, and remember them well. They were the biggest thing on the news every night, for weeks, if not months. Even today, more than half a century later, it's hard to think about those filthy psychopaths torturing and murdering a pregnant woman, and all the others, without feeling emotional and horrified. The fact that the killers and their insane guru weren't executed, and that one of them is now out of prison, is a monstrous injustice.

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Fucking hippies.

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I was a teenager, too and I always like to remind people of a few things:

ONE: In addition to killing Sharon Tate and her three friends, the Manson killers also killed a fifth victim that night -- a young man completely "wrong place at wrong time" who had come by the home to do business with a SIXTH person there -- a caretaker who lived in a side house. (I can't remember why the fifth young victim came by, someone here educated me on that in another thread.) The Manson killers shot the young man in his car quickly, before heading up to the house to kill their intended victims: Tate et al.

TWO: Indeed, the young male caretaker woke up the next morning to find out that he had either slept or watched TV or something while five people died horrible deaths right near him. Horrific. I do believe that the cops immediately arrested the caretaker, I don't recall how long it took to clear him.

THREE: The very next night after so horribly killing Sharon Tate, her unborn child, and her group,, the Manson killers committed an equally horrific stabbing murders of a middle-aged couple picked at home TOTALLY AT RANDOM. This was in some ways more terrifying than the Tate murders because Manson at least had a connection to the previous tenant of the home rented by Tate and Polanski. Rosemary and Leno LaBiana were simply "picked" after the killers drove through a neighborhood with orders to kill people and make it look like a race war situation. ("Death to Pigs" was painted in blood on the walls by the killers.) Leno ended up in death with his belly exposed, a large carving fork stuck into it deeply to go along with the knife wounds.

CONT

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FOUR: "The big one": Again, I could use some help here on dates, but the REAL terror of the Manson family were all the MONTHS between the Tate-LaBianca murders and the Mansons being discovered as the killers(some of them were in jail and confessing to other inmates.) There was true terror in Los Angeles in those months -- the Mansons had fiendishly added "regular non-celebrities" to their victims(the LaBiancas) so ANYONE could be the next victims.

Rich celebrities bought guns and guard dogs and sometimes bodyguards during this period. "Regular folk" did what they could. But it was a time of terror. I lived close enough to where it all happened to feel some of that terror.

For the Hollywood folk -- perhaps more in the music world that Charles Manson had haunted(hanging out with Beach Boy Brian Wilson and Doris Day's hippie music producer son Terry Melcher, whose previous home Sharon Tate was fatally living in) -- the Mansons pretty much ended an "open door" to the hippie culture; all were suspect from then on.

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Even today, more than half a century later, it's hard to think about those filthy psychopaths torturing and murdering a pregnant woman,

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A pregnant woman begging -- against all realistic odds -- the killers to kill her but to spare the baby in her belly(she was 8 months out)

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nd all the others, without feeling emotional and horrified.

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Yep. It was horriific when it was announced, terrifying for the months the killers were unknown and at large, and pretty much enraging as the incarcerated Manson and his wacked out gang of girls and boys made mockeries of their trials and alter imprisonment.

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The fact that the killers and their insane guru weren't executed, and that one of them is now out of prison, is a monstrous injustice.

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Truly monstrous. The deal was that Manson and his killers were all sentenced to death but in 1972, the California Supreme Court struck down the death penalty in that state and they were all converted into "life with possible PAROLE" sentences. (The death penalty was brought back around 1978 in California thanks to a ballot initiative, but the Mansons couldn't be put back on the death penalty at that point.)

None of the Manson killers were granted parole and all have either died in prison or are still there(Tex Watson)...save one.

Leslie Van Houten was released in 2023 from California prison at age 74. She could live a long time more.

Here is what she did to murder victim Rosemary LaBianca:

Stabbed her approximately 16 times in the back and exposed buttocks.

...and she's out and living free.

CONT

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When Tom Hanks made the Stephen King "1930s electric chair death row movie" The Green Mile in 1999 he was asked his opinion on the death penalty and said "I think some killers should get the death penalty and some should not." If one holds this view...surely the Manson killers were among those who SHOULD have gotten the executions ordered upon them in 1970 or so.

But they killed in California. The death penalty is still on the books in California, but no one has been executed in years. Current Governor Gavin Newsom has held to his vow that he will allow no executions during his terms in office.

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I read somewhere, that some non profit group wanted to help Leslie get a job, now that she is free. I guess she earned degrees in prison, and there are places that hire seniors, but knowing her noteriety, she has an uphill battle.

Susan Smith, the NC mom who lied on a Black guy stating he stole her kids, when she actually murdered them in the 90's, was released recently too I believe. But according to some reports, she never tried to earn any degrees while incarcerated for over 30 years. Go figure.

The also let Squeaky Fromme out, and she tried to kill President Ford. That makes no sense. Wasn't Hinckley who tried to kill Reagan released as well?

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I read somewhere, that some non profit group wanted to help Leslie get a job, now that she is free. I guess she earned degrees in prison, and there are places that hire seniors, but knowing her noteriety, she has an uphill battle.

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It is hard call and yet not a hard call. What the Mansons did -- not only to the Sharon Tate group at a home they were CONNECTED to , but TOTALLY AT RANDOM to a married couple at home picked totally at random-- is the best argument extant for the death penalty -- if you believe it in for some people. I do -- in the abstract. (In other words, I don't think that I personally would enjoy personally putting anyone to death -- but if others do and can and will..the worst of us are well out of here.)

But we were told then --and are told now -- that "life without possibility of parole" is a humane alternative TO the death penalty. I'm quite willing to accept that one -- I don't NEED the death penalty -- but the Leslie Van Houten release only proves that you will NOT have that outcome. 74 isn't all that old anymore and even if it will be hard to "place her somewhere" -- she was SUPPOSED to be executed. She was SUPPOSED to never get out of prison.

I've told this story elsewhere, but decades ago, a group of celebrities supported the release of a convict in prison on murder charges(a fight, maybe?) who wrote a fine book called "In the Belly of the Beast." They won his release. He got out and while at a restaurant, got into an argument with the waiter...and stabbed him to death.

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Susan Smith, the NC mom who lied on a Black guy stating he stole her kids, when she actually murdered them in the 90's, was released recently too I believe. But according to some reports, she never tried to earn any degrees while incarcerated for over 30 years. Go figure.

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I think she is up for parole -- there were mental issues claimed -- not sure if she's out. A male prison guard with whom she had an affair in prison says he figures if she gets out..she'll become a stripper. Its a living. But honestly, I shouldn't be funny about this. Civilizations of centuries ago -- and in some parts of the world now -- execute people for far less then taking human lives. It would seem that the true human monsters among us who kill innocents(children, women...and yes men) at a MINIMUM should be put away for life.

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The also let Squeaky Fromme out, and she tried to kill President Ford. That makes no sense. Wasn't Hinckley who tried to kill Reagan released as well?

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Well, I think with Squeaky, she wasn't charged with any of the murders, so she got out. Hinckley didn't actually KILL President Reagan, and he had mental issues(trying to impress Jodie Foster after seeing her in the political assassination thriller Taxi Driver) so he got out. (Wiseacres also note: hey, he only shot a Republican after all. Charming.)

One of the odd things in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" is that since the Manson killers DON'T kill Sharon Tate et al, they come off rather as silly bumblers easily dispatched by Brad, his dog, and Leo. Only if we HAD see them successfully and brutally stab someone would the horror of their existence come clear.

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I so sincerely wish that MV promoted threads like this.

Obviously, I am going to read more of your postings because you seem like one of these sincere members here (I'm sad to say, that oftentimes, I give as good as I get, but still wish MC would clamp down on the negativity here).

Anyway, this has grown to be one of my favorite films because it is such a fantasy-fairy tell that makes us forlornly ask, "ah, what if?"

My kids don't understand its appeal to me and I try to impress upon them how these killings sort of marked a disastrous change in American society that we have never recovered from and probably never will.

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Thank you! You are very kind 🙂

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I just saw the film, and was getting antsy as well when August 8th popped up, in addition to the Stones song, " Baby you are running out of time", as they highlighted the El Coyote dinner scene, and the group going home". In addition to the song" 12:30,Young Girls Going To The Canyon). I am wondering if the dog food scene was referencing to when the Manson weirdos fed the LaBianca's dog before killing the couple?

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