8 Lost Movie Scenes That Were Found Years Later
3. Once Upon A Time In America - The Mausoleum
Sergio Leone’s crime drama Once Upon a Time in America has a long history of having its runtime butchered.
The Ladd Company feared that the film's 269 minute runtime needed to be shorter, cutting it a comparably paltry 139 minutes. Over the years since Leone’s death, his children have taken to restoring the film to its original state and beyond, using more and more discovered unused footage.
As it stands, the film starts with gangster Noodles laying wasted in a Chinese opium den after his friends have been shot down by the police. Once Upon a Time then retells the events of the past that lead to that moment and then continues on to the future.
One of these deleted scenes is the surreal cemetery scene where Noodles visits the Riverdale Mausoleum after being informed the remains of his friends have been moved there. Within, he discovers a plaque that inexplicably claims that he paid for the mausoleum despite the fact he was living in hiding after their deaths. The general tone really amps up Noodles’ feelings of guilt and serves to add credence to the theory that some of the story is protagonist Noodles’ drug-addled dream. Still sitting in the opium den, Noodles is supposedly picturing the future.
When played alongside the other scenes, such as love interest and wannabe-singer Deborah performing on Broadway with no context around it, it certainly adds some depth and intrigue to that potential interpretation.