Quentin Tarantino’s sophomore hit, Pulp Fiction, was filled with disturbing scenes, from Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta) accidentally killing Marvin (Phil LaMarr), Mia Wallace’s (Uma Thurman) overdose, and even Captain Koons (Christopher Walken) telling a young Butch (Bruce Willis) about his father’s smuggled watch. But no scene in Pulp Fiction is more shocking than the gimp. Played by comedian Stephen Hibbert, the character is only known as Gimp, and has no lines in the movie. Tarantino was worried the censors would force him to cut the scene, so he blindsided them with an even more disturbing moment, that he never intended to leave in the final cut.
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Pulp Fiction, Phil LaMarr spoke with Variety about his brief time working on the crime classic, and revealed Tarantino’s genius plan to trick the rating boards. In the final cut, Marvin is accidentally shot by Vincent in the back of his car, with Tarantino cutting to the outside of the car as blood splatters on the windscreen. However, Quentin Tarantino devised a far more gruesome ending for Marvin, which was only created with the rating boards in mind. LaMarr explained:
“The other choice was that they built a bust of me that was rigged to shoot tons of brain and blood onto the back window, though Quentin never planned for that to be in the final cut.”
Tarantino was worried that the censors would force him to cut the gimp scene involving Butch and Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). So he devised a scene that he knew would make the rating boards ballistic, and distract them from the horrific scene much later in the movie. LaMarr continued:
“He said, ‘we’re going to show this young Black kid getting his brains blown out for the ratings people to give them some things that you can take out, so you can leave in some other things.’ So if they hadn’t blown out my brains, they would’ve had to cut out the Gimp.”
Marvin’s Death Was Original Going to Be Even More Brutal
While Tarantino’s plan to distract the rating boards involved a more bloody depiction of Marvin’s original death, Phil LaMarr also revealed that his character was originally going to meet a more painful, but still accidental, end. In a deleted scene, Marvin is accidentally shot in the throat instead of the head by Vincent. After trying to save him, Jules and Vincent decide to mercifully kill Marvin. However, the re-drafted scene caused John Travolta to be concerned about how audiences would react to his character. LaMarr explained:
“Originally, Marvin was supposed to get shot twice: once in the throat, and then they go, ‘Damn, we’ve got to put him out of his misery,’ and then Vincent kills the kid. But John said, ‘If I kill this guy on purpose, the audience is going to hate me.’ And so they changed it to just the one accidental shot.”
Related
30 Years Later, Samuel L. Jackson Recites His Iconic Pulp Fiction Monologue
“And you will know My name is the Lord!”
Pulp Fiction remains one of Quentin Tarantino’s most iconic movies 30 years after its release, and is one of the defining films of the ’90s. While Reservoir Dogs was a hit for Tarantino, Pulp Fiction confirmed his box office viability, and gave the director carte blanche for the rest of his career, leading Tarantino to create his now unparalleled filmography.
- Release Date
- September 10, 1994
- Runtime
- 154