How sad is this?

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

I found this silent epic in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I read that director Erich von Stroheim (Foolish Wives) originally created a film that lasted 9 and a half hours, but when it premiered in New York, MGM cut it down to a "commercial" length, of just over 2 hours. What was lost is regarded as the greatest tragedy in motion picture history, and the missing footage has been called the "Holy Grail" of cinema, but I found a reconstructed 4-hour version, that tells the full story narrative the director originally intended. Basically in Placer County, California, John McTeague (Gibson Gowland) works as a miner at the Big Dipper Gold Mine. When travelling dentist Dr. "Painless" Potter (Erich von Ritzau) visits the town, McTeague's mother (Tempe Pigott) begs Potter to take her son on as an apprentice. Potter agrees, and eventually McTeague becomes a practising dentist, with his own office on Polk Street in San Francisco. Marcus Schouler (Jean Hersholt) brings his cousin and intended fiancée Trina Sieppe (Zasu Pitts) into McTeague's dental office, Schouler and McTeague are friends and McTeague gladly agrees to examine her. As they wait for an opening, Trina buys a lottery ticket, McTeague becomes enamored with Trina and asks Schouler for permission to court her, seeing his conviction, Schouler agrees. After being with each other for some time, Trina eventually agrees to marry McTeague, shortly after Trina finds that her lottery ticket is a winner, she receives $5,0000 ($71,000 by today). Schouler is bitter and claims that the money should have been his, his bitterness causes a rift between him and McTeague, after the wedding the newlyweds continue to live in their small apartment, but Trina refuses to spend her winnings. Schouler leaves the city to become a cattle rancher, but before leaving he secretly reports his former friend McTeague for practicing dentistry without a license, McTeague is ordered to shut down his practice or go to jail. Trina has saved over $200 in addition to the original $5,000 from the lottery ticket, but she is unwilling to spend the money, the couple are forced to sell their possessions when money becomes increasingly scarce. McTeague finally snaps and bites Trina's fingers in a fit of rage, he goes fishing to earn money, and takes Trina's savings (now totaling $450), Trina's bitten finger becomes infected and is amputated. To make money, Trina becomes a janitor at a children's school, she withdraws the $5,000 from the bank to keep it close to her, spreading it on her bed and sleeping on it. McTeague returns and has spent the savings he took, he asks Trina for more money, after she refuses he confronts her the following day at the school, but she still refuses, after a heated argument McTeague beats Trina to death and steals the $5,000. McTeague is now an outlaw, he returns to Placer County and teams up with prospector Cribbens (James F. Fulton), heading towards Death Valley, they plan to become millionaires after finding a large quantity of quartz (a valuable element). Before they can begin mining, McTeague senses danger and takes a horse, the remaining money and the water jug, several marshals pursue him, with Schouler accompanying them, he is desperate to catch McTeague personally and rides into Death Valley alone. The severe heat slows McTeague down, Schouler's progress is also waning when he spots McTeague and moves in to arrest him. After a confrontation, Schouler fires a gun into the water container, the water spills onto the desert floor, the pair fight one last time, McTeague is victor, but Schouler has handcuffed himself to him. It ends with McTeague left in the desert and the harsh heat with no horse and no water, handcuffed to a corpse, and unable to reach the remaining money. Also starring Chester Conklin as "Popper" Sieppe and Sylvia Ashton as "Mommer" Sieppe. Director Stroheim is quoted as saying "No matter if I could talk to you three weeks steadily could I possibly describe even to a small degree the heartache I suffered through the mutilation of my sincere work". The version I watched was longer, using still images of the original full uncut version, that took 2 years to make, all that is missing are fairly minor scenes, including a subplot depicting the lives of elderly couple Charles W. Grannis (Frank Hayes) and Miss Anastasia Baker (Fanny Midgley). It is an interesting story, the female lead character is obsessive, and the lead male character turns from simple unqualified dentist into a mad violent alcoholic and murderer, greed is ultimately what leads to their tragic fates, if you can find this reconstructed version, then it is a worthwhile classic silent drama. Very good!

A grimly fascinating fable about the thin line between love and hate and how money muddies the divide.McTeague (Gibson Gowland) is a gold miner who's extremely rough around the edges. He can tenderly kiss a lame bird, then the next moment toss a contemptuous co-worker into a canyon. "Such is McTeague." While Mac becomes an amateur dentist, he never really changes in character. Zasu Pitts does seem to evolve as Trina. She goes from being a wide-eyed, frigid naïf to a shifty-eyed, obsessive liar. I'd heard her name but never before seen Pitts, and this is a tour-de-force introduction to her work.Jean Hersholt is the greasy-haired friend in ill-fitting suits. As Marcus, he transfers Trina like chattel to Mac, who -- perversely aroused by the woman while she's under ether, having some teeth extracted -- has confided his lustful cravings. When Trina wins a large lottery, Marcus turns murderously venal.There are some extremely memorable scenes in this film. Who will forget Mac serenading Trina on the "sewer"? Or the sun-scorching death scene in the desert.This film touches on some modern themes, including the sexual abuse of patients, and is mesmerizing much of the time. Even my 11-year-old son was drawn in. I learned on Wikipedia that we have the Danish-born Hersholt to thank for our current translations of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales. Great work on both fronts, sir!

Frank Norris's 1899 novel McTeague is one of the key works in American literary naturalism, featuring several hallmarks of the literary movement, which flourished around the turn of the century. Erich Von Stroheim's adaptation, retitled Greed, strictly adhered to the novel and the original nine hour cut must have been a scene for scene translation. This closeness of the film to the source material means that Greed carries over some of naturalism's key themes. Specifically, the film is about John McTeague, a miner's son who attempts to better himself by becoming an apprentice in a trade—dentistry—but ultimately finds himself doomed to failure as mining is what he was meant to do. This combination of determinism and social Darwinism is typical of naturalism's focus on the lack of autonomy of individual humans. Another characteristic of naturalism evident in Greed is a sort of primitivization of human beings as both John McTeague and his father are constantly dirty and covered in masses of unkempt hair. Similarly, in one of Von Stroheim's most inspired scenes, some clever editing compares McTeague's rival Marcus to a cat preparing to prey on a couple of helpless caged canaries. Another key theme of Greed is…greed, which wrecks the lives of the three principal characters. McTeague's love interest Trina is a hard working, thrifty girl who remains relatively happy until she wins a substantial sum in a lottery, after which she becomes a miserable miser as she strives to increase her small fortune. This infuriates the formerly happy-go-lucky Marcus, who gracefully bowed out of a semi-engagement with Trina to make his friend McTeague happy. His opportunism is amplified into psychosis as he realizes he's missed his chance to share a part of Trina's fortune. The money even ruins McTeague himself, who finds it impossible to work for menial wages when his household possesses enough wealth to allow him a relatively leisurely life if only he could convince his wife to use it. The other important characters in Greed are two diametrically opposed couples: there is the greedy couple Zerkow and Maria, who dream of fabulous wealth and the elderly couple Grannis and Miss Baker, who are too busy working to notice each other. Zerkow suspects Maria is hiding money from him and it drives him mad while Grannis sells his business (for the same amount Trina won in the lottery) and settles down to retirement with Miss Baker. The never subtle Norris uses these subplots to posit two possible future future paths for McTeague and Trina. Contrary to my focus on themes common to the novel and film, Greed is not merely an extension of Norris's novel. Von Stroheim makes the film his own as he sets the proper tone with colored filters, carefully controlled zooms, and some reasonably well put together editing. In fact, his filmmaking is considerably more adept than Norris's workmanlike prose. The climactic scenes in Death Valley, which Von Stroheim shoots through a yellow filter, are particularly impressive and are easily among the best of the silent era. In spite of the carefully realized themes of McTeague, I did not enjoy the novel when I read it a few years ago. Like many works of naturalism, some of the character behavior seems stilted—probably to reinforce the idea that humans lack autonomy. Further, Norris's lack of style and his heavy-handedness in slathering on miserable situations make for a rather unpleasant reading experience, which to be fair is not atypical of my experiences with literary naturalism. The most problematic aspect of McTeague, though, is one I've already mentioned: the social Darwinism. It's always difficult to establish intent, even with a writer as heavy- handed as Norris, but it's tempting to see the novel as a snobby dismissal of an irredeemable lower class represented by the buffoonish and reprehensible McTeague. Yet, in spite of my dislike for McTeague, which caused me to stay away from this film for years, I found Greed quite impressive even with its often languid runtime, which is padded out with uncinematic production stills and expository title cards. Von Stroheim has a better sense of characterization and he manages to build some sympathy even for the mostly unlikeable characters here and he infuses the goings on with an epic quality mostly absent from the book. Somehow, Von Stroheim stayed true to a book I didn't like and made a film I found above average nonetheless.

Greed(1925) was based on a novel that was in the tradition of great long novels like Crime and Punishment or War & Peace. The director, Erich Von Stroheim wanted to do a faithful adapation of the book McTeague because of his fascination with the theme of greed. He did do a faithful adaption but ended up paying a stiff price for his drive towards perfection. Marvelous film that is one of the 100 greatest films of all time. The acting is terrific and the story is compelling to follow.Gibson Gowland does a convincing job in the role of Dr. McTeague. Like many of the director's early films, Greed(1925) was severely cut. Original running time of the movie was nine hours. Its a disgrace that we will never see the full cut ever resurface in the theaters or DVD. One of the best films from the 1920s(besides Metropolis) to suffer at ridiculous cuts at the hands of the censors and studios.