The classic movie Quentin Tarantino came close to remaking
A revelatory conversation unfolded during a 2022 instalment of the podcast Video Archives, hosted by esteemed filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary. Initially centred around the discussion of legendary film director Roger Corman and his time at American International Pictures (AIP), the dialogue between the two revealed the one film Tarantino came close to remaking.
For the uninitiated, AIP was a leading name in the ‘B’ movie landscape from the 1950s through to the 1970s, renowned for its low-budget, high-energy films, which often involved youthful rebellion and invigorating rock and roll soundtracks. Corman, the mentor of directors like Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola and frequently dubbed as the ‘Pope of Pop Cinema’, was a pivotal figure within AIP, often attached to its most memorable projects.
As their passionate conversation unfolded, Tarantino revealed that he was once on the brink of recreating a classic from the AIP catalogue: 1957’s Rock All Night, directed by Corman. About the film, Tarantino said: “The script is fantastic, [Dick] Miller is fantastic — that is the closest I ever came to actually doing a remake”. He explained that this came about post-Reservoir Dogs when producers Deborah Hill and Lou Arkoff were curating a Showtime series called Rebel Highway, inspired by AIP’s juvenile, delinquent films.
The series saw filmmakers such as Mary Lampert, Ralph Bakshi and Robert Rodriguez bring their own ideas to the table, largely abandoning the original films’ premises and maintaining only what Tarantino called the “punchy titles”. The Kill Bill director, however, had a different approach in mind, with a plan to stick very closely to the source material. As Avary prodded for more detail, Tarantino said: “I really liked Rock All Night. So I would have actually done a remake of it, and I had a whole thing in mind about it”.
Avary questioned him about potential casting choices, to which Tarantino thoughtfully proposed Tim Roth for the lead role, explaining how he would be “the guy that goes into bars and starts shit”.
“If you’ve seen Rock All Night before, you’ll know that part of the thing is these gangsters who take over a roadhouse, and hold everybody hostage. And he’s a total asshole, but he’s the asshole you need in that situation, and he ends up getting the best of the gangsters,” he explained. Reminiscent of a certain scene in Pulp Fiction, don’t you think?
Tarantino described an innovative twist he had in mind for the remake, which would see the ‘Pope of Pop Cinema’ by way of the ‘King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’. He intended to feature Elvis, set the film in Memphis, and incorporate a plotline where the singer, forced by gangsters, performs a song about his mother. Despite his evident passion for the project, Tarantino ultimately decided against it. The reason, he noted, was the over-eagerness of producer Hill for him to direct it, whose enthusiasm about having the Reservoir Dogs director on board made him take a look at the bigger picture.
Avary humorously quipped, “You want to be chased a little. You wanna be pursued”, to which Tarantino responded: “Kind of. She was too excited about me doing one, alright, making me realise ‘I’m kinda the man, after doing Reservoir Dogs‘, and maybe I shouldn’t be lining up to do one of these Showtime things.”
The director explained his thoughts at the time and how he felt his next project should be more important than “a fun little assignment I’m doing with Showtime with a bunch of other groovy dudes.”
In agreement with Tarantino’s decision, Avary reassured him, “I’m here to tell you, you made the right choice.”
Given that Tarantino’s subsequent project was the Palme d’Or-winning masterpiece Pulp Fiction, which unequivocally reshaped the cinematic landscape and redefined what mainstream films could be, we can’t help but nod in agreement. Once considered a lost classic, you can watch Rock All Night below.
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