‘ONCE UPON A TIME’ UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER

Once Upon a Time in Television. . . .

NBC aired Sergio Leone’s sweeping-yet-intimate gangster epic “Once Upon a Time in America” in two confusing parts Sunday and Monday.

Actually, NBC’s was the fourth version of the movie, running three hours and 12 minutes, not including commercials. Leone’s original European version ran about four hours and 40 minutes, according to film editor Hubert De La Bouillerie, who was hired by Warner Bros. to edit the movie for NBC. A much-truncated, much-excoriated version--which Leone reportedly despised and virtually disowned--was released theatrically in the United States, followed by the airing of a longer, more satisfying version on pay TV.

Which returns us to the “Once Upon a Time in America” that ran on NBC.

As expected, Leone’s most violent and sexually explicit sequences did not survive the recutting. Others were omitted because of time constraints or were shifted out of their original context.

Consequently, portions of this flawed-but-scintillating movie were unintelligible, and viewers who hadn’t seen either of the longer versions must have wondered what was happening.

In Part 2, for example, the playful attempt of Tuesday Weld’s character to identify the masked gangster with whom she’d earlier had sex made no sense because the sex sequence was omitted from the appropriate scene in Part 1. You could hear her moans in the background, but out of context they sounded like agony--as if she were being throttled--instead of ecstasy.

The real jolt came midway through Part 2 with the appearance of a 10-minute reprise of the beginning of Part 1. A flashback and other scenes you had already watched inexplicably appeared again. Why?

Because NBC ordered it, De La Bouillerie said.

Meanwhile, Part 1 ended awkwardly, just as a new subplot was beginning, and Part 2 resumed just as awkwardly.

“What can you do?” De La Bouillerie said. “You have to have two 96-minute segments, so you’re stuck. They end where they end.”

He explained that the editing for the NBC version was the result of negotiations among NBC, Warners, Leone and the movie’s producer, Arnon Milchan. “NBC sent editing notes to Leone,” De La Bouillerie said. “He sent back his notes. Then they sent him their notes, and finally he approved them. He wasn’t happy about it, but he did approve them, probably because he was so unhappy about the theatrical release and wanted to get another version on TV.

“And I had to follow their notes,” added De La Bouillerie. But he did work from Leone’s original European version of the film and thus included some scenes previously unseen in the United States.

“I tried to keep the flow and I tried to keep as much of the integrity of Leone as possible. At least we were able to save a film, which isn’t always the case.”

Indeed. Even this cut-up version did not diminish the performances: Robert De Niro as Noodles, James Woods as Max and Elizabeth McGovern as Deborah, and Scott Schutzman, Rusty Jacobs and Jennifer Connelly in those roles as kids. Nor did it obscure Ennio Morricone’s haunting score, Tonino Delli Colli’s camera craft or Leone’s hand in shaping this memorable odyssey.

The heavier hand of NBC was another matter in continuing the practice of injecting obnoxious voice-over promos for other programs into movie-ending credits while the mood and music of the story still linger.

Though generally sound, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ recently announced Emmy nominations for the 1986-87 season contained the inevitable errors of commission and omission. The envelopes will be opened Sept. 20 on the Fox Broadcasting network (KTTV-TV Channel 11 locally).

The unnominated but deserving?

For sheer verve alone, ABC’s British-inspired “Max Headroom” merited mention in the drama series category. For sheer brilliance, so did “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” the half-hour NBC newcomer whose failure to fit neatly into a programming niche may have cost it a nomination. A comedy it’s not, even though star Blair Brown was nominated as a comedic actress.

In the category of best miniseries, “Lost Empires” and perhaps even “Paradise Postponed”--both “Masterpiece Theatre” offerings from Britain on PBS--got the shaft from academy nominators. And what about ABC’s infuriating, bloated, misshaped, unnominated “Amerika”? Warts and all, it provided more rewards than at least one miniseries (NBC’s pretty-looking, pretty awful “Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna”) that did get nominated.

Did politics cost “Amerika”?

And did politics cost NBC’s savagely funny “Spitting Image” specials a deserved nomination in the variety/music/comedy field? The puppets and political satire were devastating.

Another overlooked contender was a fine PBS production of Saul Bellow’s “Seize the Day,” in which Robin Williams’ splendid performance as Tommy Wilhelm also apparently underwhelmed the nominators.

Ditto Durmot Mulroney’s tender performance as a troubled father in ABC’s “Daddy” and the highly skilled comedy acting of Barnard Hughes in “The Cavanaughs” on CBS and Ed O’Neill in “Married . . . With Children” on Fox.

Also worthy was Sam Neill for his memorable Soviet administrator in “Amerika” (the academy also snubbed his stunning performance in 1984’s “Reilly: Ace of Spies”).

And a case could be made for Richard Kiley’s thoughtful turn as the family patriarch of NBC’s miniseries “A Year in the Life,” which will debut as a weekly series in the fall.

Who are the nominated but undeserving?

“Murder, She Wrote” on CBS is one--a pleasant way to spend an hour, but hardly award-worthy. And ABC’s “Out on a Limb” had its moments, but not enough of them to deserve the nomination it got as best miniseries.

Ann-Margret earned her nomination for the pathetic heroine in NBC’s “The Two Mrs. Grenvilles,” but the nominated miniseries itself was merely a very pleasing trifle. Not even that could be said of Claudette Colbert in the same production, but she got a nomination anyway.

As for Louis Gossett Jr.’s nomination for routinely playing old Mathu in the very confused “A Gathering of Old Men,” perhaps the academy was rewarding him for not walking out on the CBS drama in protest. He should have.