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 the 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.
It's worth noting that there's a logical/technical error in the scene where the kids retrieve the liquor crates in the harbor: when the crates float to the surface, the crates come up too far above the surface: they should still be floating below the surface, attached to the balloons. However, they were probably made visible by the production crew so the audience would better understand how Noodles' contraption worked.
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 the 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.
It's worth noting that there's a logical/technical error in the scene where the kids retrieve the liquor crates in the harbor: when the crates float to the surface, the crates come up too far above the surface: they should still be floating below the surface, attached to the balloons. However, they were probably made visible by the production crew so the audience would better understand how Noodles' contraption worked.
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 far better than sex with Peggy. Patsy is a young, poor kid who's starving and probably never has a chance to eat something so exquisite. Note the way he gobbles it down after he finally opens the paper. In short, he's hungry and eventually realizes, after taking a small taste, that eating is more important.
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.
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