gavin6942 The sudden fortune won from a lottery fans such destructive greed that it ruins the lives of the three people involved.Stroheim shot more than 85 hours of footage and obsessed over accuracy during the filming. Two months were spent shooting in Death Valley and many of the cast and crew became ill.During the making of Greed, the production company merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, putting Irving Thalberg in charge of the production. Thalberg had fired Stroheim a few years earlier at Universal Pictures. Originally almost eight hours long, Greed was edited against Stroheim's wishes to about two-and-a-half hours. Only twelve people saw the full-length 42-reel version, now lost; some of them called it the greatest film ever made.In the early 1950s Greed's reputation began to grow and it appeared on several lists of the greatest films ever made. In 1952 at the Festival Mondial du Film et des Beaux Arts de Belgique, Greed was named the fifth greatest film ever made, with such directors as Luchino Visconti, Orson Welles and Billy Wilder voting for it.There are a great many versions floating around. You will not be able to find the ridiculously long version, but Turner has put together the next best thing, and it seems pretty simple to find a medium-length copy. There are also some out there that look awful and sound worse. Maybe the film is in the public domain or maybe these are bootlegs. i am not sure. But do not watch these copies if you can help it. The least they could have done was put a new soundtrack over the top, but instead they left some awful din.

De_Sam Erich Von Stroheim was a controversial director in the golden age of Hollywood, he was a student of D.W. Griffith having acted and been assistant to the former filmmaker. He did not only inherit the practical skills of Griffith but also the vision of himself as an artist who would make films the way he wanted them to make; he would not let any studio executive dictate the way he made his film, even if they were eventually cut in a way more suitable to the perceived public at that time.The troubled relationship between Von Stroheim had already climaxed when he was forced to leave the production for 'Merry-Go-Round' in 1923, after which he was fired by the same man, Irving Thalberg the general manager of Universal. Luck was not on Von Stroheim's side as even though he had filmed 'Greed' under MGM, on April 10 of 1924, when the film was still in post-production, MGM merged with another production studio, putting his old rival Irving Thalberg in charge of the cutting.So of the 85 hours of footage, cut down by Von Stroheim himself to a first version of 462 minutes -which allegedly was only shown to 12 people, was eventually cut by the studio to 140 minutes (the cut I got to see, I believe). However the length was not the only problem the film had in appealing to the general public as its pessimistic an misanthropic content was not suited to the 'roaring twenties' in which all other films of the time had happy endings and lighter subjects. The studios still lost money on the project and a lot (It only made half of its production cost of 546.883$ without inflation). It was a lose-lose situation.The film were way ahead of its time, only garnering admiration and praise in the 1950s. It is easy to see why; the beautifully scenes all shot on location, the harsh realistic story of man's darker side, the great directing in which Von Stroheim experimented with techniques that would inspire many other filmmakers after him (e.g. the use of deep-focus in the wedding scene) and a memorable ending that works perfect for the story.Personally I had no problems with the 140 minutes cut in terms of missing story elements or explanation to the motives of the characters. I cannot comment on the so-called "best film of all time" 462 minutes, as can no-one with that version forever lost thanks to the greed of studio executives.

evening1 A grimly fascinating fable about the thin line between love and hate and how money muddies the divide.McTeague (Gibson Gowland) is a gold miner who's extremely rough around the edges. He can tenderly kiss a lame bird, then the next moment toss a contemptuous co-worker into a canyon. "Such is McTeague." While Mac becomes an amateur dentist, he never really changes in character. Zasu Pitts does seem to evolve as Trina. She goes from being a wide-eyed, frigid naïf to a shifty-eyed, obsessive liar. I'd heard her name but never before seen Pitts, and this is a tour-de-force introduction to her work.Jean Hersholt is the greasy-haired friend in ill-fitting suits. As Marcus, he transfers Trina like chattel to Mac, who -- perversely aroused by the woman while she's under ether, having some teeth extracted -- has confided his lustful cravings. When Trina wins a large lottery, Marcus turns murderously venal.There are some extremely memorable scenes in this film. Who will forget Mac serenading Trina on the "sewer"? Or the sun-scorching death scene in the desert.This film touches on some modern themes, including the sexual abuse of patients, and is mesmerizing much of the time. Even my 11-year-old son was drawn in. I learned on Wikipedia that we have the Danish-born Hersholt to thank for our current translations of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales. Great work on both fronts, sir!

malvernp So much has been written about this extraordinary work of art that little remains to be said. Perhaps it might be useful to consider the three landmark years that are associated with this film: 1924---The badly mutilated and much abridged version that runs 140 minutes is released by M-G-M. Although there are many different views of the original running time of "Greed", it is generally believed to be over nine hours. Key characters and story lines were deleted altogether to accommodate the bureaucrats of the new M-G-M. The deleted footage apparently has been lost forever. All that remains of the deleted portions of the film are archival still photos and unused dialog cards. This 140 minute version is the only one known to modern audiences up until the year 1973.1973---Herman G. Weinberg, a film historian, published through E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. his monumental book entitled "The Complete Greed." Weinberg attempted through supplementary use of the surviving archival material to assemble a photographic reconstruction of the original film. Obviously, Weinberg was in uncharted territory. The book represents one scholar's serious effort to present us with an approximation of the nine hour film. It is flawed but absolutely indispensable to anyone interested in "Greed." 1999---Turner Classic Movies took Weinberg's concept to the next level by incorporating the surviving archival material into the existing 140 minute version----employing a method similar to that used in the reconstruction of Frank Capra's "Lost Horizon" (1937) and Judy Garland's "A Star Is Born" (1954) directed by George Cukor. However, unlike those films, TCM's version is only a reconstruction and not a reconstruction/restoration. The end result is a film that now runs a little over four hours, where the archival material actually looks better in many respects than some of the elements from the original 140 minute film.The TCM version is a revelation to people who are unfamiliar with Weinberg's book. It is a superb achievement in itself and allows the viewer for the very first time to see a reasonable approximation of Von Stroheim's film on a screen.So much has been said about the tragedy of what happened to "Greed." While the TCM reconstruction cannot reverse this situation, we should be grateful for the opportunity to see, ponder and be moved by the "Greed" of "what might have been."