![]() ![]() They also get their watch back from him and make him pay for Noodles and Max to have sex with Peggy. Whitey acquiesces to their demands that, as the new gang in the area, he pay them as much in tribute as he does Bugsy and that he do some enforcement work for them. The boys catch Whitey in the act and photograph him Patsy quickly disappears with the film plate. ![]() Patsy immediately realizes that Whitey is going to see their pre-teen (albeit physically matured) friend, Peggy ( Julie Cohen), who prostitutes herself. One day Patsy spies Whitey walking along the rooftops of the neighborhood and follows him. Though Noodles and Max share leadership of the gang, it is Max who is the more charismatic and makes most of the decisions for them. Noodles and Max come to admire each others' resolve and decide to be friends. Whitey happens by and takes the watch for himself. ![]() Noodles finds Max later and demands the watch back. He keeps the drunk's pocket watch and leaves the boys to be harassed by a local policeman, Whitey (whom the boys call "Fartface") ( Richard Foronjy), who constantly bullies them. One day, while attempting to "roll" a drunkard ( Gerritt Debeer), they are foiled in their plot by Max ( Rusty Jacobs), who has just moved into the neighborhood with his mother ( Marcia Jean Kurtz). They ostensibly work for a young local Irish gangster named Bugsy ( James Russo) however, Noodles (now played by Scott Tiler) and his friends Patsy ( Brian Bloom), Cockeye ( Adrian Curran) and Dominic ( Noah Moazezi), have ambitions to strike out on their own. In 1920, the boys grow up in poverty in a Jewish neighborhood on the Lower East Side. Noodles believes someone is seeking revenge against him. Having lived for years under the assumed name of "Robert Williams", Noodles is suspicious of the letter, thinking that he's been called back to see to the reburial of his old friends, Patrick "Patsy" Goldberg ( James Hayden), Philip "Cockeye" Stein ( William Forsythe), and Max Bercovic ( James Woods), who he used to be in a gang with. He sets himself up in with a room in a bar owned by an old friend, "Fat" Moe Gelly ( Larry Rapp), and begins to investigate the summons he received. He has been called back under mysterious circumstances: he's received a notice from a local rabbi telling him that the cemetery in his old neighborhood is being closed and the remains of those buried there are being moved. In 1968, David "Noodles" Aaronson ( Robert De Niro), returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, following a prolonged absence. ![]() Scenes presented in square brackets appear only in the 2012 Extended Director's Cut. The story frequently jumps back and forth between these times, and is summarized chronologically here. A poll of critics in Sight & Sound in 2002 placed the film at number 10 of all films released since 1978.The film is divided into three distinct time periods: 1920, 1932-3, and 1968. Oscar-winning actress Louise Fletcher's deleted performance is restored in full while new scenes involving De Niro's, Woods' and McGovern's characters were reported to add to the richness of what is now considered one of the classics of modern cinema and regarded in many circles as Leone's supreme achievement. The film's stars, Robert De Niro, James Woods, Jennifer Connelly and Elizabeth McGovern, along with soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone attended this year's Cannes screening and the latest version, which adds 25 minutes to the original European release, garnered very favourable reviews. Influential US critic Pauline Kael complained: "I don't believe I've ever seen a worse case of mutilation." The European version did eventually get a DVD release in America in the late-1990s. After disastrous test screenings in America the film, which features a series of complex flashbacks, was re-cut in chronological order against the director's wishes to 139 minutes for distribution in the States and failed disastrously at the box office. Leone's original near four-and-a-half-hour (269-minute) version in 1984 was eventually cut for European audiences to 229 minutes. That work is not expected to be completed until the autumn and Once Upon a Time in America in its latest guise will not be back on the film festival circuit until the winter of this year or spring of 2013. While there has been no official announcement from the Leone estate, or Gucci and Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation who have been closely involved in the restoration, it is understood that after the Cannes screening it was agreed that more work, including on the audio track, would be beneficial for the newly inserted scenes. The cancellation of the Melbourne screenings has once again led to plenty of speculation about the fate of a film with a famously troubled history. ![]()
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