50 Amazing Photographs From the Set of “Once Upon a Time in America” (1984)

Once Upon a Time in America (Italian: C’era una volta in America) is a 1984 epic crime drama directed by Sergio Leone, marking his final film before his death in 1989. Based on Harry Grey’s novel The Hoods, the film serves as the grand culmination of Leone’s thematic “Once Upon a Time” trilogy (following Once Upon a Time in the West and Duck, You Sucker!).

The filming of Leone’s 1984 masterwork was a legendary multi-continental production that took over 13 years of development and 10 demanding months of principal photography. Unlike almost all modern film productions where music is composed and recorded post-filming, Ennio Morricone composed and recorded the film’s iconic score before shooting began.

Leone insisted on setting up large loudspeakers on set during filming to blast Morricone’s haunting score, such as “Deborah’s Theme” and “Cockeye’s Song,” while the camera rolled. Because the film was shot without live sound recording, the actors moved, walked, and paced their performance directly to the rhythm of the music.

To prepare for the older 1968 version of Noodles, De Niro requested a private meeting with real-life crime figure Meyer Lansky to study his mannerisms and body language. Lansky declined, but the request was classic De Niro method preparation.

Leone spent weeks casting child actors who possessed exact physical mannerisms matching their adult counterparts. During rehearsals, he made the older actors study footage of the younger actors, and vice versa, to synchronize their body movements. Makeup artist Manlio Rocchetti spent hours applying fine latex appliances on De Niro and Woods for the 1968 sequences to achieve natural-looking aged skin rather than heavy prosthetics.

Leone originally envisaged two three-hour films, then a single 269-minute (4 hours and 29 minutes) version, but was convinced by distributors to shorten it to 229 minutes (3 hours and 49 minutes). The American distributors, The Ladd Company, further shortened it to 139 minutes (2 hours and 19 minutes), and rearranged the scenes into chronological order, without Leone's involvement.

The US edit was a critical and commercial flop in the United States, and critics who had seen both versions harshly condemned the changes made. While sometimes considered one of Leone’s most overlooked films, the original European cut of Once Upon a Time in America has remained a critical favorite and frequently appears in lists of the greatest films of all time, especially in the gangster genre.

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Inside the Opium Dens From Between the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Opium dens were establishments where opium was sold and smoked, typically in reclining positions using long pipes heated over oil lamps. They flourished from the mid-to-late 19th century into the early 20th century across China, Southeast Asia, North America (especially Chinatowns), parts of Europe, and Australia.

Chinese immigrants brought the practice to the United States during the California Gold Rush (around 1850 onward). San Francisco’s Chinatown became an early hub, with dens often in basements, back rooms, or upstairs spaces of laundries and boarding houses. These were tightly sealed to protect the lamps from drafts and contain the distinctive fumes. The habit spread eastward to cities like New York (notably Mott and Pell Streets), Denver, Portland, and others, as well as Canadian Chinatowns in Victoria and Vancouver. Similar dens existed in Australian gold-rush areas (e.g., Melbourne, Ballarat) and, to a lesser and often exaggerated extent, in London’s Limehouse district.

In China itself, dens ranged widely by class: opulent ones for the affluent and sparse ones for laborers. Western dens mirrored this range. Many Chinese smokers used opium as an escape from loneliness, hard labor, prejudice, and homesickness. By the 1870s–1890s, non-Chinese patrons, including white Americans of various classes, from underworld figures to middle- and upper-class individuals, and both men and women, frequented them. Some dens became mixed-race spaces.

Unlike bars or taverns designed for standing or sitting upright, opium dens were laid out specifically for patrons to lie down on their sides. Because smoking opium (chandoo) required heating a viscous paste over a small oil lamp while balancing a heavy pipe, resting on one’s side was both ergonomically necessary and essential for safety. Dens featured low wooden platforms, raised bamboo beds, or cushioned divans. In basic establishments, smokers shared wide wooden couches covered with straw mats or simple fabric; upscale establishments offered carved teak benches, silk pillows, and porcelain headrests.

Dens were typically dim and heavily insulated from drafts, as open air currents could extinguish or fluctuate the flame of the opium lamp. The air held a heavy, sweet, burnt-herbal aroma distinct from tobacco smoke. Establishments employed attendants (often called “cooks” or pipe-masters) who prepared the opium spheres, heated them over oil burners, loaded the clay pipe bowls, and handed them to patrons.

Peak popularity in the U.S. came in the 1880s and 1890s. Opium was initially legal or loosely regulated. Concerns, fueled by moral reformers, temperance advocates, and anti-Chinese sentiment, led to local bans (San Francisco’s 1875 ordinance was among the earliest anti-drug laws targeting dens), the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (which also restricted opium imports), the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and the Smoking Opium Exclusion Act of 1909. Public burnings of confiscated opium and pipes occurred. Dens were driven underground but persisted in some places into the mid-20th century (New York’s last known one closed in 1957; some Australian dens lasted into the 1950s).

Period accounts mixed genuine observation of addiction and squalor with heavy racial stereotyping, claims of dens luring and “corrupting” white women, associations with crime or moral decay, and “Yellow Peril” tropes. Many such narratives were exaggerated or false; dens attracted diverse patrons, and smoking also occurred privately in homes. Photographs from the era show both ordinary Chinese smokers and mixed groups reclining with pipes, sometimes appearing relaxed rather than purely degraded.

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Stunning Found Slides of Models From Amherst, July 1963

These stunning found slides, date-stamped July 1963 and discovered in a box labeled “Models, Amherst, 1963,” offer a fascinating glimpse into early 1960s fashion and portrait photography.

Captured in Amherst, the photos feature young models posing in the stylish clothing and hairstyles of the era, reflecting the clean lines, youthful optimism, and emerging modern look of the early sixties.

With their soft color tones and candid yet carefully composed frames, these slides provide an authentic and nostalgic record of a specific time and place in mid-century American fashion history.

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George Michael Wearing a Captain’s Jacket on the Set of Wham!’s 1983 “Club Tropicana” Music Video in Ibiza

These candid photographs show George Michael on set during the filming of Wham!’s iconic “Club Tropicana” music video in the summer of 1983.

The music video was filmed on location at the famous Pikes Hotel in Ibiza, Spain. The hotel served as the perfect sunny, luxurious backdrop for the song's satirical take on package holidays and the glamorous jet-set lifestyle.

In this particular behind-the-scenes moment, Michael was playfully posing in a formal captain’s uniform jacket, complete with gold rank stripes on the sleeves, but paired with absolutely no pants, sporting just ultra-short shorts and white tube socks.

In the storyline of the “Club Tropicana” music video, he and his bandmate Andrew Ridgeley play two airline pilots on vacation. At the very end of the video, their holiday fantasy wraps up as they are shown dressing back into their pilot uniforms to head back to work.

This humorous, pantsless behind-the-scenes shot perfectly encapsulates the campy, lighthearted, and sex-positive aesthetic that defined Wham! in the early 1980s. It has since become a beloved piece of pop history and a testament to George Michael’s early status as a fearless, boundary-pushing style icon.

George Spencer Watson: Elegant Portraitist of the Late Romantic School

George Spencer Watson (1869–1934) was an English portrait painter known for his refined and romantic style, often influenced by the Italian Renaissance.

Trained at the Royal Academy Schools, Watson became a respected member of the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. He specialized in elegant portraits of women and family members, combining soft lighting, graceful poses, and a sense of quiet dignity. His works reflect the late Romantic tradition in British painting, blending technical skill with a delicate, atmospheric quality that remains admired today.

These elegant portraits showcase George Spencer Watson’s refined technique and romantic sensibility, capturing the quiet beauty and dignity of his subjects.

Four Loves I Found, a Woman, a Child, a Horse and a Hound

A Lady in Black

A Lady in White

Cynthia

Dorothy, daughter of F.J. Elliott Esq

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Historical Photos of Columbia River Log Rafts From Between the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Columbia River served as the central highway for the Pacific Northwest’s booming timber industry. Moving millions of board feet of massive old-growth timber from inland forests to coastal sawmills, and eventually to California’s expanding cities, required extraordinary feats of maritime engineering. What began as simple river driving evolved into giant flat log booms and, ultimately, the world-famous ocean-going Benson rafts.

In the mid-19th century, loggers floated loose timber down river tributaries. On calmer stretches of the Columbia, logs were organized into flat, single-layer floating enclosures known as log booms. Bound together with perimeter boom sticks and swifter cables, these rafts were easily towed by steam tugboats downriver to mills in Portland, Vancouver, and Astoria. However, flat booms were unsuitable for the open ocean. Rough swells easily broke the cables apart, scattering millions of board feet of valuable timber into the Pacific.

To bypass exorbitant railroad freight rates and satisfy Southern California’s massive construction boom, lumber magnate Simon Benson perfected a revolutionary ocean-going log raft in 1906. Built along the lower Columbia River (primarily near Clatskanie, Oregon, and Stella, Washington), these giant cigar-shaped rafts were designed specifically to withstand the 1,100-mile ocean voyage down the Pacific Coast to San Diego.

A massive wooden frame resembling a ship’s hull was anchored in calm river sloughs. A crane operator layered thousands of logs in an overlapping pattern (like brickwork) so no single transverse seam ran through the raft. A heavy center chain ran the length of the raft, connected to radiating circle chains that wrapped tightly around the outside perimeter. Once the cradle sides were unbolted, high tide lifted the ocean-bound raft free. Crews often stacked finished lumber, telephone poles, and shingles on the flat top deck before towing.

Between 1906 and 1941, 120 Benson rafts successfully navigated from the Columbia River to San Diego, supplying lumber for major southern California landmarks. Only 4 were ever lost or severely damaged by storm weather.

The practice came to an end due to several factors. High-profile raft fires in 1941 made insuring ocean-going log transports difficult. Prolonged saltwater exposure caused wood warping and left salt residue that damaged sawmill blades and wood-fired boilers. Railroads and modern trucking routes became cost-competitive and faster than 15-day ocean tows.

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Promotional Stills of a Young Lucille Ball as a Goldwyn Girl in “Roman Scandals” (1933)

Before she became the iconic redheaded queen of television comedy, a 22-year-old Lucille Ball made her big Hollywood breakthrough as an uncredited Goldwyn Girl in Samuel Goldwyn’s Pre-Code musical comedy Roman Scandals (1933).

Working in New York as a Hattie Carnegie fashion model (under the name Diane Belmont), Ball was chosen as one of six models brought to Los Angeles by producer Samuel Goldwyn specifically to join the troupe of chorus dancers for the Eddie Cantor vehicle.

To play the part of a Roman slave girl, Lucille Ball wore a dramatic, long blonde wig that made her nearly unrecognizable compared to her later trademark red hair. The film features intricate, massive musical numbers choreographed by the legendary Busby Berkeley. In the famous “No More Love” slave market sequence, Ball and several other dancers were chained to a wall. According to her autobiography, the women wore nothing but their long blonde wigs for the scene, which had to be filmed away from studio censors.

Ball often credited Berkeley’s notoriously rigorous rehearsals as her trial-by-fire introduction to film work, teaching her essential technical precision in front of the camera. During the grueling production, she fainted while chained up high in the set rotunda. Her breakaway chains gave way, but an extra playing a slave driver caught her before she could hit the hot studio lights.

The “Goldwyn Girls” were Samuel Goldwyn’s elite stock troupe of chorus girls, serving as a launching pad for several future stars. Alongside Ball in the movie’s cast list were other young, up-and-coming actresses like Paulette Goddard and Barbara Pepper. The exposure from this film helped Ball secure a string of subsequent 1930s film roles with RKO Radio Pictures, eventually paving her way to Hollywood royalty.

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