At the beginning of Quentin Tarantino's new World War II movie, Inglourious Basterds, Brad Pitt introduces himself to the troops under his command with the words, "My name is Lt. Aldo Raine." For most moviegoers, that name isn't going to mean anything. But for those with longer memories and an obsession with 1950s films, the name of the old movie star Tarantino is slyly winking toward, Aldo Ray, is going to hold a charge.
Even for us, though, it seems odd hearing the name in a Quentin Tarantino war movie, so different in its language and its use of violence from the old-fashioned war movies in which Ray starred. It helps to remember that Tarantino is one of the world's great fans of older, neglected movie actors. He resuscitated John Travolta's career in Pulp Fiction, and Robert Forster's in Jackie Brown.
In summoning up Aldo Ray, the star of '50s epics like Battle Cry and The Naked and the Dead, he is just reaching further back. Ray was a natural warrior; a big, blond man's man with a wonderful foghorn of a voice. But for little boys growing up in the 1950s, he was also something considerably more than that.