After the TV introduction of Rick and Cliff, Treat Her Right shifts the film’s scale and energy. The song moves us from a fabricated professional image to the protagonists moving through their world.
Roy Head & The Traits set the credits in motion
Treat Her Right is the Roy Head & The Traits recording that accompanies the opening credits of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Released in 1965, it belongs to the crossover between rhythm and blues, soul and rock that fuels much of the film’s musical landscape. Its entrance comes after the black-and-white television introduction of Rick Dalton and Cliff Booth, and immediately transforms the tone through which we begin to follow them.
The song is neither a piece commissioned for the film nor a performance by Leonardo DiCaprio. Identifying Roy Head and his group makes it possible to separate the music used by the narrative from the musical performances that Rick gives within his fictional career. In the credits, the voice belongs to an earlier recording that shapes our perception of the characters, even though they do not need to explain their relationship to the track.
The television opening had established a professional hierarchy: Rick occupies the star position and Cliff explains his function as a stunt double. The music opens up a more physical experience of that relationship. We see them sharing movements and journeys, and the track’s energy makes the pair present themselves as a recognisable unit before we know all their tensions. Work, friendship and habit can be felt in the way they are together.
The recording’s date also helps explain the choice. A film set in 1969 does not have to use only songs released that same year. People listen to older hits and keep tastes that are not renewed every time the calendar changes. Treat Her Right provides an energy available in the protagonists’ cultural world, without turning the opening into a chronological showcase of the latest releases.
A rhythm that encourages movement
The immediate appeal of the track comes from its rhythmic drive and the brass response to the vocal line. The performance keeps up a persistence that carries the listening forward even when the images change place. The music provides a continuity different from spatial continuity: we do not need every shot to belong to exactly the same journey in order to feel that the credits maintain a shared direction and speed.
Head’s voice combines control and roughness. It can drive a phrase forward and let the instruments answer, creating a sense of exchange. That quality is well suited to introducing two men whose relationship depends on practised coordination. It does not mean that the lyrics literally describe Rick and Cliff’s friendship. The effect comes largely from the performance and its fit with movement, without needing to translate every word into a narrative equivalent.
The song also does not require the edit to cut mechanically on every musical accent. A shot can run on while the rhythm continues underneath, and that difference helps preserve the naturalness of an action. The viewer gets a constant push without necessarily feeling that the characters are moving like dancers bound to choreography. The music lends them energy, but leaves room for their gestures to feel part of an ordinary day.
That use is linked to the presence ofsoul and funk in Tarantino’s cinema, though Treat Her Right must retain its own identity. The volume of the voice, the instrumental attacks and the brevity of the phrases create a direct invitation into the film. The song functions as a self-assured opening, even before the narrative reveals how much fear and uncertainty the lives of its protagonists contain.
A confident entrance before the uncertainty
The opening energy contrasts with what we soon learn aboutRick Dalton. His public image can still command the screen, but a professional conversation is enough to reveal his concern about the future. The song did not lie when it presented him as vital. It showed a real dimension of his presence, one that can coexist with the fear of being left behind. That coexistence makes the passage from the credits to the first extended scenes more complex.
Cliff Booth shares the same physical confidence without occupying exactly the same working position as Rick. The music can bring them together as a pair, while the film preserves the difference between the man who is recognised and the man who works to support part of that image. The opening establishes their familiarity and allows the inequalities to emerge later within an already understandable relationship. Before assessing their circumstances, we have perceived that they know how to be together.
Choosing such an energetic recording also changes the expectation associated with the historical date. Anyone who knows the August 1969 murders might expect an opening dominated by foreboding. Instead, the film makes room for the pleasure of movement, music and everyday life. The historical threat exists for the informed viewer, but it does not occupy the entire emotional horizon of the characters from the very first moment.
Treat Her Right also opens theofficial soundtrack, where it can be heard separately from the images. That position preserves its function as an opening: the voice and rhythm prepare a listening experience that later takes in radio, rock, adverts and moments of melancholy. In the film, the track establishes an initial readiness to accompany Rick and Cliff. The narrative can later make them vulnerable, contradictory or unsettling because it has first allowed them to enter with an immediate, shared presence.
More context in the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood guide.