Quote:
Originally Posted by Goshzilla
Greed has been hailed as a cinematic masterpiece by some critics, it was based off Frank Norris's McTeague. Apparently, from the shooting script written, Erich Von Stroheim was very meticulous in adapting the novel, and even added a few of his own touches to the narrative which was lacking from the book. The end result was a half million dollar film(in 1920's money), with no grand sweeping battles, or luxurious ball room sets, with a running time of 8 hours. Von Stroheim cut it down to 4 hours with the intention it be released in the theaters at that length, and then without his oversight the film was chopped again down to 2 hours, the editing was a hack job, and made the film look poorer than it was meant to be.
It's preferable to watch the surviving 2 hour cut over the "extended" 4 hour version. Just watch the movie with the frame of mind that Von Stroheim did shoot everything scene that was in the book and did justice to all the characters, and that the edit job was done by careless studio hands.
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Quite interesting. I had never heard if this film before. Quite unusual to have a film from this time to have this long running time. I almost didn't believe you, but I looked it up
Thanks for mentioning this.