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Greed (1924 film)
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===Release and critical reviews=== [[File:Greed (1924) by Erich von Stroheim.webm|thumb|250px|thumbtime=28|The theatrical release version of ''Greed''.]] ''Greed'' premiered on December 4, 1924, at the Cosmopolitan Theatre in [[Columbus Circle]], [[New York City]], which was owned by [[William Randolph Hearst]].{{sfn|Weinberg|1972|p=13}} Frank Norris had once worked for Hearst as a foreign correspondent during the [[Spanish–American War]] and Hearst praised ''Greed'', calling it the greatest film he had ever seen.{{sfn|Curtiss|1971|p=181}} Hearst's newspapers promoted the film,{{sfn|Koszarski|1983|p=145}} but MGM did very little advertising.{{sfn|Finler|1972|p=29}} At the time of the release von Stroheim was in Los Angeles, having begun production on ''The Merry Widow'' on December 1.{{sfn|Wakeman|1987|p=1074}} In May 1926 ''Greed'' was released in [[Berlin]], where its premiere famously caused a riot at the theater that may have been instigated by members of the then-fledgling [[Nazi party]].{{sfn|Koszarski|1983|p=147}} ''Greed'' received mostly negative reviews. The trade paper ''Harrison's Report'' said that "[i]f a contest were to be held to determine which has been the filthiest, vilest, most putrid picture in the history of the motion picture business, I am sure that ''Greed'' would win."{{sfn|Koszarski|1983|p=146}} ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety Weekly]]'' called it "an out-and-out box office flop" only six days after its premiere and claimed that the film had taken two years to shoot, cost $700,000 and was originally 130 reels long.{{sfn|Finler|1972|p=31}} The review went on to say that "nothing more morbid and senseless, from a commercial picture standpoint, has been seen on the screen for a long, long time" and that despite its "excellent acting, fine direction and the undoubted power of its story ... it does not entertain."{{sfn|Lennig|2000|p=218}} In its December 1924 – January 1925 issue, ''Exceptional Photoplays'' called it "one of the most uncompromising films ever shown on the screen. There have already been many criticisms of its brutality, its stark realism, its sordidness. But the point is that it was never intended to be a pleasant picture."{{sfn|Finler|1972|p=32}} In the February 1925 issue of ''Theatre Magazine'', Aileen St. John-Brenon wrote that "the persons in the photoplay are not characters, but types—they are well selected, weighed and completely drilled. But they did not act; they do not come to life. They perform their mission like so many uncouth images of miserliness and repugnant animalism."{{sfn|Lennig|2000|p=218}} [[Mordaunt Hall]] of the ''[[New York Times]]'' gave the film a mostly positive review in regards to the acting and directing while criticizing how it was edited, writing that MGM "clipped this production as much as they dared ... and are to be congratulated on their efforts and the only pity is that they did not use the scissors more generously in the beginning."<ref>{{cite news | url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B0DE3DC143FE733A25756C0A9649D946595D6CF | title=Greed (1924) | last=Hall | first=Mordaunt | author-link=Mordaunt Hall | date=December 5, 1924 | newspaper=[[The New York Times]] | location=New York City | access-date=January 19, 2013 }}</ref> In a ''[[Life Magazine]]'' article, [[Robert E. Sherwood]] also defended MGM's cutting of the film and called von Stroheim "a genius ... badly in need of a stopwatch."{{sfn|Koszarski|1983|p=147}} [[Iris Barry]] of the [[Museum of Modern Art]] (MoMA) disliked the tinting, saying "a not very pleasing yellow tinge is smudged in."{{sfn|Koszarski|1983|p=147}} A March 1925 review in ''Pictureplay'' magazine stated, "perhaps an American director would not have seen greed as a vice."{{sfn|Rosenbaum|1993|p=36}} A more favorable review came from [[Richard Watts, Jr.]] of the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'', who called ''Greed'' "the most important picture yet produced in America ... It is the one picture of the season that can hold its own as a work of dramatic art worthy of comparison with such stage plays as ''[[What Price Glory? (play)|What Price Glory?]]'' and ''[[Desire Under the Elms]]''."{{sfn|Koszarski|1983|p=147}} The April 20, 1925 edition of ''[[The Montreal Gazette]]'' claimed it "impresses as a powerful film" and described the "capacity audience" screening as "one of the few pictures which are as worthy of serious consideration ... which offer a real and convincing study of life and character and that secure their ends by artistic and intellectual means rather than by writing down to the level of the groundlings." The review went on to describe the direction as "masterly", citing "its remarkable delineation of character development and the subtle touches which convey ideas through vision rather than the written word, an all too-rare employment of the possibilities of the cinema play as a distinct branch of art capable of truthful and convincing revelation and interpretation of life's realities."<ref>{{cite news | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Z-0tAAAAIBAJ&pg=6715,2415087 | title='Greed' Impresses as Powerful Film | date=April 20, 1925 | newspaper=[[The Gazette (Montreal)|The Gazette]] | publisher=[[Postmedia Network]] | location=Montreal | access-date=January 16, 2013}}</ref> A review in ''Exceptional Photoplays'' stated that "Mr. von Stroheim has always been the realist as Rex Ingram is the romanticist and Griffith the sentimentalist of the screen, and in ''Greed'' he has given us an example of realism at its starkest. Like the novel from which the plot was taken, ''Greed'' is a terrible and wonderful thing."{{sfn|Vieira|2010|p=48}}
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