Once Upon a Time in America: Encyclopedia II - Once Upon a Time in America - Alternate Versions

Once Upon a Time in America - Alternate Versions

Once Upon a Time in America - The Unfilmed Title Scene

Originally, the transition from 1933 to 1968 was to be much more elaborate, but finally the scene simply proved to be too difficult. From the original shooting script:

"We hear the roar of the its wheels and the wail of a train's whistle, and the view across the tracks is blocked by the engine, the tender and the cars - car after car laden with Model T's or whatever Ford was turning out in 1933... The train keeps passing, but the cars are no longer laden with 1933 Fords. They've become 1968 models in pink and turquoise and emerald green, announced by a title that fills the screen: ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA. The train disappears, taking it's rattle with it, and the barriers rise. But we are no longer staring out over open countryside. We see instead an endless row of high-rises, a cement City of Oz. Heading the row of cars that face us at the crossing is a 1960 Chevy. The is in his sixties too... Noodles, forty years later."

Once Upon a Time in America - Deleted Scenes

The original shooting-script, completed in October 1981, was 317 pages in length.

At the end of filming, Leone had about 8 to 10 hours worth of footage. With his editor, Nino Baragli, Leone trimmed this down to about 6 hours, and wanted to release the film in two, three-hour parts.

The producers refused (partly due to the commercial failure of Bertolucci's two-part Novecento) and Leone was forced to further shorten the length of his length, resulting in a completed (i.e. scored, dubbed, edited, etc.) film of 229 minutes.

Leone has said that, ideally, he would have liked the film to be "between four hours ten minutes and four hours twenty-five minutes" (250 minutes to 265 minutes), and that such a cut would mainly have served to restore scenes developing Noodles' relationships with women.

Important scenes which failed to appear in the 229 minute cut:

These scenes were all shot, and the footage still exists. However, it is in a very raw state, not dubbed and not edited.

• Young Noodles returns to his tenement, discovering his parents at prayer, and no dinner on the table.

When his parents criticise him for being 'godless,' Noodles retorts that money is his god.

• A brief scene in the 1922 sequences, showing local ganglord Bugsy (James Russo) and his gang getting arrested by the police for bootlegging while Noodles and his gang looked on was filmed but cut. This would occur right before the gang's meeting with the Capuano Brothers at the harbor.

The main importance of this scene would be to establish why the gang is working with the Capuanos. Dialogue from that scene indicates that Bugsy had been working with them, but since he and his thugs have now been jailed, Noodles and Co. have taken over his old job.

• Shots of a black limousine tailing Noodles.

• An ominous garbage-truck, used as a link between 1933 and 1968.

• Senator Bailey arguing with an older Jimmy O'Donnel about a pensions scam (just before Noodle's climactic meeting with Bailey).

• An opium-induced flashback of Noodles and the gang as children.

• Scenes of Louise Fletcher as director of the Riversdale cemetery.

• Noodles first meeting with Eve, and many other minor scenes with Eve.

In the original shooting-script, this occurs after the rape of Deborah (which happens at night, rather than early morning), a very drunk Noodles meets Eve in a speakeasy and goes to bed with her, calling her 'Deborah'

• Scenes of Noodles watching Debra performing a Busby Berkely musical-scene (at a nightclub, just before their date), and scenes from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra (on the DVD's picture-gallery, there is an image of Elizabeth McGovern, dressed as Cleopatra, holding a snake).

• A scene of Noodles talking to the cab-driver, before his date with Debra. There is clear enmity between the two characters, highlighting the way in which Jewish gangsters are perceived by their fellow Jews.

The reason that this scene was cut was because producer Arnon Milchan, who played the chaffeur, felt that he should not have had such a noticeable role in the movie, and he did not want people to make a big deal out of his cameo.

• A long scene involving Police Chief Aiello (Danny Aiello) and his involvement with the strike breakers was cut. (Some of the scene's dialogue was reworked into the brief interview with Aiello on the steps of the police station in the final version.) As a follow-up to this, there was a scene where the gang and Sharkey the crooked politician (Robert Harper) plan the famous baby-snatching scene. Noodles wants to kill Aiello, but he's convinced by Max and Sharkey not to.

• A brief scene during Noodles, Max, Carol, and Eve's vacation to Florida, where a lifeguard, having heard of the repeal of Prohibition, digs up a bottle of liquor from the beach and drinks it thirstily.

• An older Carol (Tuesday Weld) revealing to Noodles that Max had syphilis.

In the original shooting-script, this scene (occurring between the beach scene, and the scene with Carol and Noodles outside the Federal Reserve) Tuesday Weld also tells Noodles about Eve's death: "Oh, how she waited, but you never showed up... She shut the windows and locked the door, and nobody bothered to check. She was in there all the time, with her little capsules... there was nobody at the funeral but me." (The latter part of this scene may never have even been filmed, since Eve's death is depicted very differentally in the final film.)

Leone and his editor wanted to finish these scenes for a later release, but were prevented by Leone's death.

Once Upon a Time in America - Falsely Rumoured Scenes and Version

There have been rumours of longer cuts appearing on Italian television, however, according to Christopher Frayling's authoritative book Something To Do With Death these rumors are false, and the longest completed version is the 229 minute version shown at Cannes and now available on DVD.

Many people assume that Joe Pesci's brief second appearance was part of a longer scene. In the original shooting script, this appearance is just there to establish Max's continued involvement with the Combination. Others also believe that there were several additional scenes with Pesci's character filmed, but a reading of the original shooting script shows that this rumor is false. (The reason that Pesci, a name actor, was cast in such a relatively small part was because he had been promised the part of Max, but was turned down by Leone in favor of Woods. As a favor to De Niro, Leone allowed Pesci to pick a part from several available, and he chose the role of Frankie.)

Similarly, many people (including including film-critic Richard Shickel, who records the film's DVD commentary) assume that the frisbee scene was part of a longer sequence.

While the first shooting-script placed much more emphasis on the union subplot, this was very heavily trimmed in the revised shooting-script. Thus, there are not nearly as many union-related deleted-scenes as many people believe.

Note: PAL editions of the DVD have a running time of 219 minutes (and 48 seconds). This is due entirely to PAL Speedup.

Once Upon a Time in America - Shortened Versions

There are three abridged versions of the film, none of which are currently available.

• The 227 minute version - When the 'complete' film was shown in America, it still had to be trimmed slightly to secure an 'R' rating. Cuts were made to the two rape scenes, and some of the violence at the beginning.

• A network television version of three hours (without commercials) was briefly available in the early-to-mid '90s, which retained the film's non-chronlogical order but still left several key scenes out.

• The Infamous 144 minute American version - This was the version given wide release in America. Heavily cut by the Ladd Company, against Leone's wishes. The film's story was re-arranged in chronological order, which had the effect of making it even more difficult to follow. Most of the major cuts involved the childhood sequences, which were heavily edited down, making the 1933 sections the most prominent part of the film. All of the scenes in 1968 with Deborah were excised, and the scene with "Secretary Bailey" ended with him shooting himself (albeit offscreen), rather than the famous garbage truck conclusion of the 229 minute version.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Alternate Versions", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki