When they said this was the extended version of
Greed they weren't kidding. Four hours of looking at still photos to fill in the missing scenes from this heavily edited film. The photos are given the Ken Burns treatment with lots of panning up and down and left and right and sideways and anyway that can be thought of. This process of making the stills look like they are moving does not work.
What's left of the film is downbeat to say the least. This is an unbelievably depressing and relentless film about the worst aspects of human nature. MGM financed Von Stroheim's "labor of love" and I can't believe they didn't read the script before shooting. The added still photo scenes flesh out subplots that are really depressing as if the fate of McTeague and Trina isn't enough of a downer.
Since it's a Von Stroheim film, there are impressive scenes throughout the film, especially the final confrontation in Death Valley. But from what I can figure out from all the extra baggage of the still photos the world didn't lose much of a masterpiece. All the extra subplots don't really add anything to the overall narrative of the film.
Faced with an unwatchable film at a length of 10 hours, you can
hardly blame the studio for cutting it down to a more manageable length as if two and half hours is much shorter.
239 minutes
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