59 Fun Facts About Inglourious Basterds

Which Hollywood star plays Lieutenant Aldo Raine, leader of the Basterds?

Brad Pitt had spoken Tarantino's lines before, as a stoned layabout in True Romance, but Tarantino only wrote that one. Aldo Raine was the first role he directed Pitt in.

What did Inglourious Basterds borrow from a 1978 war film by director Enzo G. Castellari?

Its title is all Tarantino took: the story is his own, not a remake. Asked about the misspelling, he said he was never going to explain it, likening it to a flourish in a Basquiat painting.

What nickname does Colonel Hans Landa boast about in the opening scene?

Jew Hunter is a title Landa relishes at the farmhouse. By the last chapter, bargaining with the Allies, he shrugs it off as just a name that stuck.

The French dairy farmer hiding the Dreyfus family under his floorboards is named what?

Perrier LaPadite gives the family up only after Landa switches their talk to English, a language the people hiding beneath them cannot follow.

Under what false name does Shosanna run her Paris cinema?

Emmanuelle Mimieux is the name under which Shosanna meets Landa again. He questions her politely and never lets on whether he recognises the girl who escaped him.

The German propaganda film premiered at Shosanna's cinema is called what?

Nation's Pride gets its premiere at Shosanna's little cinema because its smitten star, Zoller, lobbies for the move, which puts the Nazi leadership under her roof.

Fredrick Zoller, the war hero starring in the propaganda film, is famous for what military role?

Sniper is right: alone in a bell tower, Zoller shot his way into the record books, then played himself in the film made about it.

Shosanna plans to burn down her cinema using what?

Nitrate film prints burn so fiercely that Shosanna needs no bomb. Her lover Marcel locks the doors and flicks a cigarette into a heap of them behind the screen.

What is the codename of the British plan to attack the Nazi premiere in Paris?

Operation Kino takes its name from the German word for cinema. As the general briefing it says, the enemy's rotten eggs are all in one basket, and the plan is to blow up the basket.

Before the war, British Lieutenant Archie Hicox had what profession?

Film critic Hicox made German cinema his speciality before the war, which is why he is picked to walk into a premiere on the arm of a German film star.

In the tavern guessing game, which famous name is stuck to SS Major Hellström's forehead?

King Kong is his card. He works it out by asking whether he crossed from the jungle to America by boat and in chains, guessing first at the story of the slave trade.

Hicox finally blows his cover in the tavern by doing what?

Making a non-German hand gesture is all it takes: Hicox orders three glasses without using his thumb, and a German counts to three starting from the thumb.

Which two items does Landa recover from the tavern that expose von Hammersmark?

A shoe and a signed napkin are all Landa needs. At the premiere he lifts her foot into his lap and slips the shoe on, a sinister Cinderella, and it fits.

At the premiere, Raine, Donowitz and Ulmer pose as filmmakers of what nationality?

Italian was picked because von Hammersmark reckons Germans have no ear for it. Landa turns out to speak it fluently and makes the Basterds repeat their fake names for fun.

How does Landa kill Bridget von Hammersmark at the premiere?

He strangles her, and the hands in the close-up are Tarantino's own. The actress said the director did not trust an actor to get the pressure right, so he did it himself.

Which two Nazi leaders do Ulmer and Donowitz shoot dead in the opera box?

Hitler and Goebbels are machine-gunned in their opera box, which is not how history went: both real men killed themselves in Berlin as the war ended.

In the final scene Raine carves what into Landa's forehead, calling it his masterpiece?

A swastika, because Landa has just bargained his way to a new life. Raine wants him to carry something he cannot take off once the uniform is gone.

Sergeant Donny Donowitz, 'The Bear Jew', executes German soldiers with what?

A baseball bat, and in a flashback cut from the film it had a history: Donny bought the heaviest he could find and had Jewish neighbours sign it with the names of loved ones in Europe.

What nickname has the Basterds' leader earned through his habit of scalping Germans?

Aldo the Apache tells every recruit that he owes him a personal debt of one hundred Nazi scalps, and he means to collect.

Which Austrian actor plays Hans Landa, a role Tarantino feared was 'unplayable'?

Christoph Waltz was the find that kept the production alive. Tarantino said that if he had not found him, he would probably have pulled the plug on the movie.

Which A-list star did Tarantino originally want for Hans Landa before opting for a native German speaker?

Leonardo DiCaprio was the early idea, but Tarantino came to see Landa as a linguistic genius, a part that needed his dialogue delivered equally well in German, French and English.

Which actor went up for the part of Hans Landa and ended up playing British officer Archie Hicox instead?

Michael Fassbender read for Landa first. Hicox only came free when Simon Pegg, the original choice, had to pull out over a scheduling clash.

Which Basterd is a German sergeant, recruited after he murdered a string of Gestapo officers?

Hugo Stiglitz is played by Til Schweiger, who had always refused to put on a Nazi uniform for a role. He made an exception for a character who kills them.

Which comedy star plays British General Ed Fenech in the Churchill briefing scene?

Mike Myers let it be known he would love a part. He is a Second World War buff whose parents were both veterans, and he had always wanted to play an elderly British general.

Which star of Hitchcock's The Birds came out of semi-retirement to play Winston Churchill in Inglourious Basterds?

Rod Taylor had drifted into semi-retirement when Tarantino, a long-time fan of his action films, offered him the cameo. It turned out to be his last film role.

Which German actress plays Bridget von Hammersmark, a screen star secretly spying for the Allies?

Diane Kruger got the part only after talks with Nastassja Kinski fell through. Tarantino had even flown to Germany to meet Kinski before the deal collapsed.

Samm Levine, who plays the Basterd Hirschberg, first found fame as a teenager in which cult TV series?

Freaks and Geeks was cancelled before its first season finished airing. By Levine's account Tarantino was a big fan, though the actor later found that many of his lines had been cut.

Which US state does Lieutenant Aldo Raine, with his thick mountain drawl, call home?

Tennessee is home, and Raine tells his recruits he is a direct descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger. That, he says, gives him a little Indian in him, and his battle plan with it.

Which Tarantino regular is heard but never seen as the narrator of Inglourious Basterds?

Samuel L. Jackson never appears on screen: his voice breaks in over the action to tell how one of the Basterds became known to every German soldier.

Tarantino shelved the Inglourious Basterds script for years because he was missing what?

An ending was the one thing he could not find. He called the drafts some of the best writing he had ever done, then set them aside and made Kill Bill instead.

Which French director talked Tarantino out of turning Inglourious Basterds into a TV mini-series?

Luc Besson told him over dinner that he was one of the few directors who made him want to go to the cinema, and that waiting five years for his next film was depressing. Tarantino said he could not un-hear it.

Much of Inglourious Basterds was shot at which historic film studio in Potsdam, Germany?

Babelsberg made films for the Nazi propaganda ministry after 1933. Seven decades later its stages hosted a story about wiping out that regime's leaders at a film premiere.

Which composer did Tarantino want to score Inglourious Basterds, only to reuse pieces of his older film music instead?

Ennio Morricone was tied up scoring Giuseppe Tornatore's Baarìa, so Tarantino raided his back catalogue. His first full Tarantino score came with The Hateful Eight, which won the composer an Oscar.

'The Green Leaves of Summer', the opening theme of Inglourious Basterds, was written for which John Wayne epic?

The Alamo lends a war film a western's opening, which was the idea. Tarantino had long described the project as his spaghetti western, only with Second World War iconography.

Which David Bowie song, written for a 1982 horror film, plays as Shosanna prepares for the premiere?

"Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" is a deliberate anachronism in a story set in 1944. By Tarantino's account he could have commissioned a ballad for Shosanna, but this song's words already fit her story.

Inglourious Basterds had its world premiere in competition at which film festival in May 2009?

Cannes was the deadline. Tarantino rushed the film through in under a year to make the festival, then went back into the editing room that June to finish scenes before its cinema release.

Over strudel in a Paris restaurant, what does Hans Landa order for Shosanna to drink?

Milk is no kindness: Shosanna grew up on a dairy farm, and the last time she was on one, the man now ordering for her had her family killed. The script itself calls the order disconcerting.

In return for letting the cinema plot go ahead, Hans Landa demands a home on which American island?

Nantucket was only part of the price. Landa also wanted citizenship, a full military pension and the Medal of Honor, all as a reward for the lives he claimed he was saving by bringing the war to a swift close.

Inglourious Basterds opened at number one in North America, knocking which sci-fi hit off the top spot?

District 9 had led the chart the week before. Seven days later a horror sequel, The Final Destination, did the same to Tarantino's film, which slipped to second.

Inglourious Basterds turned only one of its Academy Award nominations into a win, in which category?

Best Supporting Actor went to the man who played Hans Landa. Three years later he won the same Oscar again, for his very next Tarantino role.

The man who played Hans Landa won which prize at the festival where Inglourious Basterds premiered?

Best Actor came from a jury chaired by Isabelle Huppert, who had once been lined up for a part in it herself. It was the first prize of many for the role.

The German release of Inglourious Basterds runs slightly longer than other versions because it extends which scene?

The tavern rendezvous opens with more of the soldiers' guessing game. Elsewhere that footage was only a disc extra, so Germany, of all places, got the fullest cut.

In Poland the film was retitled Bekarty Wojny, meaning what?

The change let the poster's letter O be styled with Nazi iconography that the original spelling did not allow.

Pleased with his own correct guess while questioning Aldo Raine, Hans Landa cries "Oooh, that's a…" what?

Bingo it is, though the great linguist gets the idiom slightly wrong. He asks if that is the way you say it, and Aldo flatly corrects him: you just say bingo.

Chapter One of Inglourious Basterds is titled 'Once Upon a Time in…' where?

Nazi-Occupied France completes the chapter title, a phrase Tarantino weighed as the name of the whole film. A decade later he did use the formula, for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Which director of the Hostel horror films plays Sergeant Donny Donowitz, the 'Bear Jew'?

Eli Roth worked on both sides of the camera: he also directed the propaganda film that screens at the premiere. Tarantino, his friend and champion, had been an executive producer of Hostel.

Which comedian turned down the role of Donny Donowitz because of a scheduling clash with Funny People?

Adam Sandler read the script, called it fantastic and had to say no, because the Judd Apatow comedy was shooting at the very same time. By his account he and Tarantino had talked about the part for years.

Which actor, Mr. White in Reservoir Dogs, voices the American commander Hans Landa bargains with over the radio?

Harvey Keitel is heard but never seen. It was Keitel who read the Reservoir Dogs script, signed on and helped raise the money, which is how Tarantino's career began.

Where on his body does Aldo Raine carry a large scar that Inglourious Basterds never explains?

Around his neck runs what the script calls a rope burn, as if he had once survived a lynching. It also promises the scar will never be mentioned, and nobody ever does.

In German and Austrian publicity for Inglourious Basterds, what replaced the Nazi symbol on the steel helmet?

A bullet hole took its place because both countries restrict the display of Nazi symbols. The law exempts works of art, so the film itself ran untouched while only its advertising changed.

Which studio, the home of Jaws and Jurassic Park, co-financed Inglourious Basterds and released it outside the US?

Universal Pictures came in as a full partner, not a hired hand. It co-financed the production with the Weinstein Company and took the release everywhere outside the US.

Which Tarantino film overtook Inglourious Basterds as his highest-grossing release?

Django Unchained opened on Christmas Day 2012 and took over $400 million worldwide. It reunited Tarantino with the man who played Hans Landa, this time as a German on the side of the angels.

Outside North America, which country gave Inglourious Basterds its biggest opening weekend?

France came first, a whisker ahead of the United Kingdom. Germany was third, and even there, in the country whose wartime leaders the story kills off, it opened at number one.

Inglourious Basterds won the top film prize handed out by which Hollywood guild?

Screen Actors Guild voters put its ensemble ahead of The Hurt Locker's for their top film prize. Weeks later the tables turned, and The Hurt Locker took Best Picture at the Oscars.

As Shosanna flees the farmhouse massacre, what does Hans Landa shout after her?

Au revoir means until we meet again. Landa levels his pistol at the running girl, lowers it without firing and calls it after her, and years later in Paris they do meet.

Which French actress plays Shosanna Dreyfus, the cinema owner out to avenge her family?

Mélanie Laurent waited four days for Tarantino's call after auditioning; when he finally rang she demanded a yes or a no, and he answered by asking whether she would be his Shosanna.

In which 2007 Takashi Miike film did Tarantino take an acting role while delaying Basterds?

Sukiyaki Western Django is a Western that Miike shot in English with a Japanese cast, and Tarantino turns up as a gunman in its opening scene; he took the detour after putting his war film on hold in 2004.

Which actor from the 1978 war film that Tarantino drew on has a cameo in Inglourious Basterds?

Bo Svenson plays the American colonel in the propaganda film shown at the premiere, and the helmeted soldier pleading with him, back to the camera, is Tarantino himself.

Which film beat Inglourious Basterds to the best drama Golden Globe?

Avatar took the drama prize and Best Director at the Globes, but weeks later The Hurt Locker beat it to both of those Oscars; Basterds went home from the Globes with one win from four nominations.