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Once Upon A Time In America

Once Upon a Time in America
Once Upon A Time In America1.jpg
Theatrical release poster by Tom Jung
Directed by Sergio Leone
Produced by Arnon Milchan
Screenplay by
Based on The Hoods
by Harry Grey
Starring
Music by Ennio Morricone
Cinematography Tonino Delli Colli
Edited by Nino Baragli
Production
company
Distributed by
Release date
  • May 23, 1984 (1984-05-23) (Cannes)
  • June 1, 1984 (1984-06-01) (US)
  • October 11, 1984 (1984-10-11) (UK)
Running time
229 minutes (European release)
139 minutes (US release)
251 min (extended director's cut)
Country
  • United States
  • Italy
Language English
Budget $30 million
Box office $5.3 million
Once Upon a Time in America
Soundtrack album by Ennio Morricone
Released June 1, 1984
October 17, 1995 (Special Edition)
Recorded December 1983
Studio Forum Studios, Rome
Genre Contemporary classical
Label Mercury Records
Producer Ennio Morricone
Special Edition cover
1995 Special Edition

Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 Italian-American epic crime drama film co-written and directed by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. Based on Harry Grey's novel The Hoods, it chronicles the lives of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City's world of organized crime. The film explores themes of childhood friendships, love, lust, greed, betrayal, loss, broken relationships, and the rise of mobsters in American society.

It was the final film of Leone's career and the first feature film he had directed in 13 years. The cinematography was by Tonino Delli Colli, and the film score by Ennio Morricone.

Leone originally envisaged two three-hour films, then a single 269-minute version, but was convinced by distributors to shorten it to 229 minutes. The American distributors, The Ladd Company, further shortened it to 139 minutes, and rearranged the scenes into chronological order, without Leone's involvement. The shortened version was a critical and commercial flop in the United States, and critics who had seen both versions harshly condemned the changes that were made. The original "European cut" has remained a critical favorite and frequently appears in lists of the greatest gangster films of all time.

The film is presented in non-chronological order, from 1920 to 1968, and it is largely told through flashbacks from the viewpoint of one person. The specific scenes and their order vary from version to version. The following description is that of the film's full European cut.

The film begins in medias res with gangsters entering an Indonesian puppet theater, looking for a marked man. The proprietors slip into a hidden opium den and warn a man named "Noodles", but he pays no attention. In a flashback, he watches the police remove three disfigured corpses from a street. He successfully kills one of the three thugs that are after him but learns that the thugs have murdered his girlfriend while looking for him and finds that someone else has stolen his money. He leaves the city.


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Wikipedia

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