Once Upon A Time in America - Production

Production

During the filming of Once Upon a Time in the West, Sergio Leone read the novel The Hoods, written by Harry Grey, a pseudonym for a former gangster-turned-informant whose real name was Harry Goldberg. Leone became intent on making another trilogy about America. He turned down an offer from Paramount Pictures to direct The Godfather in order to pursue his pet project. Grey finally met Leone several times in the '60s and '70s, and was a fan of Leone's Westerns. Before his death in 1982, he ultimately agreed to the adaptation. Part of the reason why the production took so long was that another producer had the rights to the novel and refused to relinquish them until the late 1970s.

The film begins and ends in 1933, with Noodles hiding out in an opium den from Syndicate hitmen. Since the last shot of the movie is of Noodles in a smiling, opium-soaked high, the film can be interpreted to have been a drug-induced fantasy or dream, with Noodles remembering his past and envisioning the future. In an interview by Noël Simsolo published in 1987, Leone himself confirms the validity of this interpretation, saying that the scenes set in the 1960s could be seen as an opium dream of Noodles. In his commentary for a DVD of the movie, film historian and critic Richard Schickel states that opium users often report vivid dreams and that these visions have a tendency to explore the user's past and future.