Greed (1924)

I've made it a goal to stay on top of the silent movies when I find them, and I have to say this one was an easy watch. I actually watched the full  hour restored version that came out in 1999, and it was pretty eventful and good. The original film was actually over 9 hours long, the director then edited it down to 5 1/2 hours. Another director [Rex Ingram] then cut it another 6 reels, then MGM without Erich von Stroheim's knowledge cut it down to 10 reels. So the 42 reel film was cut to 10 reels, and the other 32 were basically recycled before being saved.

So how is there a 4 hour version? Well there are a number of stilled used to reconstruct the story, and a lot of the text is 100% restored using the book "McTeague" as a reconstruction guide. This is considered one of the top ten lost films in American cinema, and from what I've seen it deserved to be held in high acclaim.

The film is about the deadly sin of Greed, and pushes examples it to an extreme. Starting with McTeague's dad and his downfall of greed, and epically following McTeague's life of marrying into fortune. When his wife is overly stingy it causes a rift in their relationship an to McTeague eventually snapping. The scenes in Death Valley at the end are some of the best in this era of film making and do a great job bringing this film to a close.

If you can handle the run time, this one is worth watching.

Vote: 8/10

IMDB Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015881/

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