NitrateVille.com

I see that "Greed" (1925) is now on YouTube. The whole movie it looks like? (I wouldn't know which version it is because we don't have a proper TCM in the UK.) However this YT version is 1 hour 43 minutes long. Its been posted by "Classic Movies" https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdCefh ... DHptq_5rRQ" target="_blank - And they've even had the nerve to post the whole of Disney's "Snow White & The Seven Dwarves" (1937). I've no doubt that that will be removed once Disney gets to hear about it.

In amazing 240p quality too!

I'm glad I watched GREED but, once is enough...

Michael O'Regan wrote:I'm glad I watched GREED but, once is enough...

You wouldn't care to see Zazu getting croaked again? I loved that part (and that part ONLY).

Well... As things stand at the moment in the UK, its the only way for us to see it. Even with that dreadful music score! I'm just thankful that I managed to burn it to DVD-R when I was working in San Francisco from US-TCM, so I actually have a proper copy.

Why not order it from Amazon? There is a nice edition in France...

Strange how the definitive version for non broadcast public consumption is the laser disc release from around two decades ago. I guess it will have its long awaited DVD/Bluray outing eventually like WINGS and THE BIG PARADE have recently done.

The French (Bach Films) and Spanish (Resen) DVDs of Greed are very poor quality VHS rips. Avoid.

With the possible exception of BLIND HUSBANDS, GREED remains far and away my least favorite Von title.

I'll keep my stills reconstruction I recorded off TCM. I might upgrade if the stills version is ever released commercially, but even then, it's not a title I wish to revisit often.

Just a few years ago, I snagged a copy of the videocassette release of Greed (from the box of which the pic at the top of this thread was I think taken). The pleasure I get out of watching it is mostly from appreciating the outstanding performances of Jean Hersholt and . . . Chester Conklin!

Harlett O'Dowd wrote:With the possible exception of BLIND HUSBANDS, GREED remains far and away my least favorite Von title.

To each their own. The morality play (yes, it does tell the story the title indicates), BLIND HUSBANDS is my second favorite Stroheim feature, GREED being my favorite.
Greed is the story of three best friends, McTeague, whose very much like the simple minded Hoss Cartwright on "Bonanza," Trina and her cousin, Marcus, the street wise guy who befriends the slow thinking Mac.
Money doesn't change John McTeague but money destroyed first a friendship and then a marriage.

I am kind of shocked to see the loathing for Greed on display here of all places. I love it (I loved the book McTeague too) and could watch it over and over. It's far more watchable to me than the dull aristocratic stuff Stroheim usually did.

Mark Zimmer wrote:I am kind of shocked to see the loathing for Greed on display here of all places...

Lack of enthusiasm, and/or honest acknowledgement of the unjustified hype associated with this picture, do not equate to loathing. My own lukewarm feelings derive mostly from the excessive length, from Von's well-known distain for reasonable economy.

entredeuxguerres wrote:

Mark Zimmer wrote:I am kind of shocked to see the loathing for Greed on display here of all places...

Lack of enthusiasm, and/or honest acknowledgement of the unjustified hype associated with this picture, do not equate to loathing..

Eeek! We agree!

For the record, I don't loathe GREED either. I get why it's revered, but I like Von's other work better. It's not a film I l happily watch over and over again like, say, SUNRISE.

entredeuxguerres wrote: My own lukewarm feelings derive mostly from the excessive length, from Von's well-known distain for reasonable economy.

Ah, that's more like it. I think the stills restoration plays better because it shows the more balanced exercise Von intended than the released print. It's a shame it wasn't released in two two-hour parts, even if only overseas, where there was already a precedence for such things.

Harlett O'Dowd wrote: I think the stills restoration plays better because it shows the more balanced exercise Von intended than the released print. It's a shame it wasn't released in two two-hour parts, even if only overseas, where there was already a precedence for such things.

It's sad the 'Stills' reconstruction didn't limit itself to telling the original story without adding so many of those gaudy colored stills that didn't help tell the story. Who needed to see the gold colored tuba?
The 'Maria & the Junkman' subplot was in the book and surely in Stroheim's original version, but it's only a distraction and did nothing to tell the central story.

Rex Reed's 3hr, 15min cut (made at Stroheim's request), likely didn't contain the sequence. Too bad that version has been lost.

Big Silent Fan wrote: Rex Reed's 3hr, 15min cut (made at Stroheim's request), likely didn't contain the sequence. Too bad that version has been lost.

I assume you mean Rex Ingram.

Rick

Rick Lanham wrote:

Big Silent Fan wrote: Rex Reed's 3hr, 15min cut (made at Stroheim's request), likely didn't contain the sequence. Too bad that version has been lost.

I assume you mean Rex Ingram.

Rick

Boy, I'd love to see Rex Reed's cut! Then maybe John Simon could deliver his cut -- probably a 90-second landscape shot and nothing else. The late Pauline Kael would have delivered the mythical 8-hour uncut version. Siskel and Ebert could have given us a version containing nothing but shots of thumbs.

Jim

Mark Zimmer wrote:I am kind of shocked to see the loathing for Greed on display here of all places. I love it (I loved the book McTeague too) and could watch it over and over. It's far more watchable to me than the dull aristocratic stuff Stroheim usually did.

Loathing? Not me. Indifference would be more accurate.
I, too, loved Norris's book.

GREED is a very polorising film. Reviews are quite meaningless. Has to be watched and viewers need to make up their own mind.

I think we should all go and sit on the sewer and discuss it in depth...

Donald Binks wrote:I think we should all go and sit on the sewer and discuss it in depth...

+1 Posting of the day!

I watched TCM's stills + surviving footage restoration, but it took me several watching periods to get through it all. So much of the runtime seemed devoted to the stills, especially in the first half of the film, that it really became distracting. The motion picture portion was well worth watching, but every time the stills came up I had to shift gears and my attention would often wander.

If they ever give this film a quality Blu-ray release, one would hope they could put the pure motion film version as well as the still reconstruction on the disc.

Donald Binks wrote:I think we should all go and sit on the sewer and discuss it in depth...