Watch a Newly Restored Scene From Sergio Leone's Ill-Fated Masterpiece 'Once Upon a Time in America'
In the annals of Hollywood production history, few films are looked upon with such a mix of affection and sorrow as Sergio Leone’s 1984 gangster saga Once Upon a Time in America.
In the mid-1970s, Leone — the Italian director best known as father of the spaghetti western — announced his plans to film a decades-spanning story tracing the rise of organized crime in New York City. The project immediately became a cinematic cause celebre, attracting the names of the world’s biggest stars from the U.S. and abroad.
In 1982, the film finally went before the cameras with Robert De Niro, James Woods and Elizabeth McGovern in the lead roles. What followed remains the stuff of controversy to this day. After shooting completed, Leone found himself with a six-hour film (that involved the contributions of no less than 8 credited screenwriters). The director wanted to release his finished work in two three-hour installments.
When his studio, Warner Bros, balked at that proposal, Leone carved the work down to a 3-hour, 49-minute version that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1984. Yet even that length proved too much for the studio. Nearly an hour-and-a-half of the film was excised – over Leone’s objections – for the cut that was sent out to U.S. theaters.
The abridged version failed to win over the public (and many critics) — and was pulled from theaters a month after its release. It was the last film Leone ever made, and the “What might have been” tale became the stuff of film-fan legend.
In the three decades that have since passed, controversy has flared since about where Leone’s version begins, as various cuts have found their way to daylight. Between them, the film has found legions of fans among cineastes, consistently falling near the top of lists of the greatest films of the past few decades.
Now, fans can take a great leap forward in the annals of Once Upon a Time in America — and the public can see what all the fuss was about — with the release of the Extended Directors Cut Edition on Blu-ray/DVD from Warner Bros Home Entertainment. The 251-minute cut was restored under the supervision of Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation, and gives the best look yet at Leone’s masterpiece.
Fans can take a sneak peek above in a previously unseen scene from the new version. (There's nothing wrong with your computer: footage taken from previous cuts of the movie have been given proper high-def treatment, while newly added scenes like this one are presented in their sometime deteriorated state.) In this segment, Robert De Niro’s characters, David “Noodles” Aaronson returns from hiding out, seeking the bodies of his slain friends and crime partners. While looking over their tomb, Noodles meets the cemetery director (Louise Fletcher) and he asks about the mausoleum, provoking the strange and charged exchange seen above.
