New Release: Once Upon a Time in America Blu-ray

Warner Home Video issued the late, great Sergio Leone’s masterful 1984 film Once Upon a Time in America on Blu-ray Disc on Jan. 11, 2010, for a suggested retail price of $24.98.

An epic drama of friendship, crime and betrayal, Once Upon a Time in America tells the story of a half-century in the lives of four gangster friends from their beginnings on New York City’s Lower East Side in the 1920s to their entry into the world of organized crime.

The movie stars Robert De Niro (Meet the Parents) and James Woods (Salvador) along with a supporting cast that includes Joe Pesci (Love Ranch), Elizabeth McGovern (Clash of the Titans), Jennifer Connelly (Creation), Treat Williams (What Happens in Vegas) and Danny Aiello (Stiffs). Aiello discussed the film with Disc Dish in an interview.

The final film by Leone (A Fistful of Dollars), Once Upon a Time in America also boasts one of the most beautiful musical scores by the legendary Ennio Morricone.

The movie has a famously checkered history, having been chopped from its original 229-minute director’s cut to a generally detested 139 minutes for its U.S. theatrical release. The film has been available on VHS and DVD in both versions, but for the Blu-ray, it is released in all its nearly four-hour glory.

Special features on the Blu-ray include a commentary and an excerpt from a Leone documentary.

 

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.