{"id":3994,"date":"2009-03-12T21:42:45","date_gmt":"2009-03-13T05:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/?p=3994"},"modified":"2010-02-20T13:12:06","modified_gmt":"2010-02-20T21:12:06","slug":"greed-erich-von-stroheim-1924-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/?p=3994","title":{"rendered":"Greed (Erich Von Stroheim, 1924): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed on TCM.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Perhaps, more than any other film, Erich Von Stroheim\u2019s mutilated masterpiece, Greed<\/a><\/em>, is considered cinema\u2019s greatest tragedy of studio interference and lost footage.\u00a0 Originally clocking in at ten hours, Von Stroheim was forced to cut the film, which he did, to a still lengthy four hours.\u00a0 Still not satisfied, MGM then took the film from the despondent Von Stroheim and cut it to two hours and twenty minutes.\u00a0 As the story goes, the hours of film that were cut were destroyed by cinema fan\u2019s most hated janitor who simply thought the footage was unimportant.\u00a0 Ggrrhh!\u00a0 The version reviewed here is an attempted recreation of the four hour version using still shots and existing footage, and following director Von Stroheim\u2019s outline.<\/p>\n

McTeague (Gibson Gowland) is presented to us as a sort of gentle giant.\u00a0 He is a simple man with a love of small birds, but with incredible strength and a temper that can get out of hand if he is pushed too far.\u00a0 He becomes the apprentice of a traveling dentist and soon has his own dentist\u2019s office.\u00a0 He becomes smitten with his friend\u2019s cousin, Trina (Zasu Pitts), and when his friend Marcus (Jean Hersholt) steps aside, McTeague marries her.\u00a0 When Trina wins the lottery, Marcus has serious regrets about his decision to let McTeague have her, and Trina turns into an unconscionable miser for the ages.<\/p>\n

The recreation of Von Stroheim\u2019s second cut of the film has varying degrees of success.\u00a0 While it is great to get a sense of the film Von Stroheim intended, the use of still photographs does not carry the same power and it becomes more curiously interesting than it is magnificent.\u00a0 This version is recommended more for the hardcore cinema fans, but should be thought of more like a DVD extra as it is too cerebral a viewing experience and the real power of the film comes through better in the two hour and twenty minute version.<\/p>\n

The film itself is very powerful and Gibson Gowland has a great presence as the big curly blonde haired McTeague.\u00a0 Zasu Pitts creates an incredible, unsympathetic portrait of the miser Trina, and Jean Hersholt shows no hint of the humanitarian as the greedy, bitter Marcus.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Based on Frank Norris\u2019s novel McTeague, Von Stroheim shows no fear in taking on a literary classic and shows us a very ugly side of humanity expressed through his fierce and maimed vision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Byron Potau.\u00a0 Viewed on TCM. Perhaps, more than any other film, Erich Von Stroheim\u2019s mutilated masterpiece, Greed, is considered cinema\u2019s greatest tragedy of studio interference and lost footage.\u00a0 Originally clocking in at ten hours, Von Stroheim was forced to cut the film, which he did, to a still lengthy four hours.\u00a0 Still not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,79,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-silent-films","category-tv-programming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/g9r.3b8.myftpupload.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}