FAQ

It's a model of a liquor crate attached to a sack of salt and a rubber balloon secured to the crate with a rope net. Noodles drops it in the barrel of water and says "Now we wait for the salt to dissolve..." When the salt in the sack dissolved, the balloon would float to the surface with the crate attached.

Since this part of the story is set in the 1920s, any form of alcohol had been banned as of 1919 when the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution went into effect after being ratified by Congress. Capuano is a liquor runner who would probably have several different methods of bringing illegal booze into the country: trucks at Canadian and Mexican border crossings with less security or with border agents who could be bribed or he'd have it hidden with cargo of ships he either owned or from shippers he'd made deals with. As with any form of smuggling, Capuano's ships would be stopped and boarded and if US government agents found any illegal cargo, they'd force the crew to dump it overboard. As a way of routing the inspections and seizures, Noodles and the crew sold Capuano the invention for a piece of Capuano's earnings and the boys become very rich very fast.

Probably because Deborah realized that Noodles was on a path to becoming a criminal, due to the influence of his new friend, Max. Deborah didn't want to get involved with a boy who would use theft and violence through the rest of his life to make a living. Noodles and his friends -- Patsy, Cockeye and Dominic -- were already involved in crime but when Max joined the gang, they began to expand their ambitions and challenge Bugsy for control of the neighborhood, hence Bugsy's gang beating them so badly. It was likely quite an objectionable turn of events for Deborah, who did show some romantic interest in Noodles.

Deborah also might have felt, as we see clearly when she rebuffs Noodles' flirting with her, that Noodles was unworthy of her since her family is several steps higher on the class scale: her father owns the neighborhood delicatessen -- her brother Fat Moe works there -- and her family were better off than Noodles' family, who were dirt poor.

Once Upon a Time in America is based on the 1953 autobiographical novel The Hoods by Harry Grey, a pen name for Harry Goldberg, a former gangster-turned informant. It is the third movie in a Sergio Leone trilogy, preceded by Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and Duck, You Sucker! (1971).

Martin Eden by Jack London. Why he has to retrieve it from a hook hanging outside the bathroom window is not fully explained but chances are he was trying to hide it from his parents and any other adults (the bathrooms of poor NYC tenements were communal in the early 20th century, and each floor had one) who may have thought the book was objectionable. The book is about a sailor from a working class background who is infatuated with a woman from an upper middle class family. The book's theme is significant because Noodles' himself comes from a very poor background while the girl he loves, Deborah, comes from a slightly more privileged family, i.e., he's a street kid who joins his friend in committing crimes while she's the daughter of a successful Jewish delicatessen owner.

Patsy bought the pastry with the intention of giving it to Peggy in exchange for sex. Peggy mentioned earlier to Noodles that she'd allow Noodles to have sex with her if he gave her the dessert. Patsy probably heard that fact from Noodles. The reason we watch Patsy for so long is that the payoff of Patsy eating the dessert is that we're watching Patsy struggle with a transition from childhood to adulthood. He's old enough to know what sex is and that he wants it, but not quite grown up enough to choose it over sweets. He's very close, though, which is why he is so conflicted for so long. What's impressive isn't just that Leone lets the scene play out for as long as it goes, but that the young Brian Bloom sells it so exquisitely. Bottom line, he *really* wants to get laid, but that pastry is just too good to resist!

Sergio Leone's furious finale of the Once Upon a Time trilogy started it's European theatrical success with a runtime of 229 minutes. Originally, Leone planned to release two movies with a runtime of three hours; however, supposedly because of the commercial disaster of Bernardo Bertolucci's two-part 1900 (1976) (aka 1900), the producers told Leone to forget about that idea. The first version, 269 minutes long, was trimmed down by Leone himself—40 minutes of footage were cut out. Since this version has a runtime of 251 minutes, it is probably not the complete first version by Leone, which was mentioned above. Additionally, the runtime which is displayed on the cover (246 minutes) is not correct. In comparison to the European theatrical version the extended version is "only" 22 minutes longer (one minute originates from additional credits regarding the restoration). There's a sticker on the Italian DVD which says "include 26-Minute inediti"—another thing that is simply wrong. One could have expected that a few scenes from the theatrical version were cut out, especially the short flashback of Noddles at the end of the movie before he makes his decision, since it was rumored that Leone was not satisfied with the scene. This is not the case, the movie simply follows the original course of the theatrical version which now has 6 additional (blocks of) scenes.