Wow,Where have i been all these years I seen the film for the first time today!
Just excellent...very deep -4hr'sDe Niro, James Woods, Joe Pesci, Elizabeth Mc Govern, Tuesday Weld.
What did you all think of this film?

Most definitely one of my favorites. How great was the casting in that movie of the 'kid' versions of those characters? I thought that the resemblences of those young characters to their older characters (like the kid who played young cockeye, the young version of DeNiro, Woods, etc.)was just uncanny.

Great movie with a great storyline and some really great actors.


Don Cardi

Absolutley one of the best films I've ever seen.

Yes- just excellent.
Don, Did James woods really jump into that garbage truck in the end. My guess he did not & who's son was that young man could it of been Noodles son from the rape 30yr's ago?

Its either Noodles Kid or Maxs..

Or then again it could be all just be one big Heorin trip..

I consider myself a mafia/gangster movie buff, but I have to sadly admit that I have never seen this film. Can someone give me a short summary? From what I have read it is definitely worth my time to watch it. Pesci and De Niro together are always good IMO. Any comparisons to other films?

Ace

Pesci only in the film for about 10 minutes in total,a class film you should check it out...

i saw it and honestly, i found it good but it seemed kinda wierd for some reason.

Yeah I know what you mean

One of the best movies ever made, I consider it is just as good as The Godfather I.

A terrific movie, but oh so sad. I have to prepare myself to watch it because it almost brings me to tears. Even though it's about the underworld, it is also so much about the passage of time, getting older, the road taken and not taken, love and lost love ... yes, I have to prepare myself to watch it.

Simply a super movie!
One of the best ever!

Overall an AMAZING movie. DeNiro is so good as Noodles. Honestly anyone who HASN'T seen this.... SEE THIS MOVIE!!

i thought it was a good film nothing more or less

Yes he did. And if you listen closely it sounds as though a gun shot goes off at the same time. I think that he actually shot himself when he jumped into the truck.

That young man was the son of the James Woods character Max aka Senator Baily.



Celtic - I suggest that you watch the movie again. And make sure it's the long version and not the edited version. It's really an excellent movie and one that almost requires a second viewing in order to pick up the small details that are sometimes overlooked during the first viewing.

In my opinion it is probably one of the most underated mobster movies ever made.




Don Cardi

I just bought it for £8 can anyone tell me, did i spend that money well?

yes definently Donpacino De niro is surperb watch it watch it watch it now!!!!!!

I'm going to watch it tommorow morning quite early as I heard it was 4 hours, is that true?

dont think its 4 hours..it is soughts long but you wont notice..its a great film..i only saw it a couple of weeks ago..im gonna buy it myself soon

It seemed to move very slowly, and the disc kept skipping so I never got to finish it.

Yes, the long unedited version ( which is the the only version to watch btw ) is about 3 hours and 45 minutes long. But it goes very fast.


Don Cardi

The original script 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 film, 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:

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 1921 sequences, showing local ganglord Bugsy (James Russo) and his gang being arrested by the police for bootlegging while Noodles and his gang looked on. 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 Noodles' 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'Donnell about a pension scam, just before Noodle's climactic meeting with the former.
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 his 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 Deborah performing a Busby Berkely musical scene at a nightclub, just before their date, as well as scenes from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. (The DVD's picture gallery feature includes an image of Elizabeth McGovern dressed as Cleopatra and holding a snake.)
A scene of Noodles talking to the limousine driver before the date with Deborah. There is clear enmity between the two characters, highlighting the way in which Jewish gangsters are perceived by fellow Jews. The reason that this scene was cut was because producer Arnon Milchan, who played the chauffeur, 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. (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, a scene where the gang plans the famous baby-snatching scene with crooked politician Sharkey (Robert Harper) was also shot. Noodles wants to kill Aiello, but is convinced not to by Max and Sharkey.
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 (set between the beach scene described above, and Carol and Noodles' scene outside the Federal Reserve) also has Carol revealing the details of Eve's death to Noodles: "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 differently in the final film.)


These scenes were all shot, and the footage still exists. However, it is in a very raw state, not dubbed and not edited. Leone and his editor wanted to finish these scenes for a later release, but were prevented from doing so by Leone's death.

I would love to get my hands on the deleted footage.



Don Cardi

DonPacino, did you ever get to watch it?

Did Leone ever discuss a sort of successor or something along those lines...someone who would be allowed to reincorporate those things if it were possible?

Because I wonder, now with unlimited space on DVD's with Blu-Ray, whether studios won't begin having two versions of every film - the theatrical version, and the "complete" sort of version. One would be much cheaper and for the general audience, but the other would sort of be criterion-esque. I know I'd snatch up a OUATIA criterion set.

That's a good question JJ. I haven't found ANYTHING that indicates that there was some sort of successor to do this.

Even an 'extras' dvd would suffice.

I am currently reading the book that the movie is based on and I now see that Leone really was trying to capture the depth of the characters, especially Noodles, and that is why he shot these extra scenes that never made it into the final cut.

Yes, I ordered it off play.com for 6.99. It was in a box which said the movie and more on. I enjoyed the film and it showed a different view on crime to The Godfather and Goodfellas. I thought the actor who played young Max looked a lot like James Woods. It was a 2 disc set but right in the middle of an action scene the disk finished so I had to put disc 2 in. The flashback scenes to when they were kids are my favourite, I think its the 1910's? I liked the movie and thought James Woods was excellent.

Glad that you enjoyed it. If you really think about it, almost all of the child actors had a striking resemblance to the actors that played the older characters.

Definitely one of my favorite movies. One that absolutely requires at least a second viewing.

It was more than just a goodbye visit. It was much deeper than that.

Ah I see.