Greed (film)
A 1924 silent film directed by Erich von Stroheim, based on the novel McTeague. Particularly noteworthy as one of the earliest examples of various "troubled production" tropes, the film's original cut came in at a stunning nine and a half hours. MGM eventually took the film out of von Stroheim's hands and released it with a running time of about two and a half hours. The shortened film was a flop, panned by critics and disowned by its director.
Tropes used in Greed (film) include:
- Downer Ending
- Dude, She's Like, in a Coma
- Epic Movie
- The Film of the Book
- Gold Fever
- Love Triangle: Gone horribly wrong.
- Money Fetish
- Re Cut: A "restored" version was released that combined the existing footage with still pictures from the production. It runs nearly four hours.
- San Francisco: Shot on location.
- Staggered Zoom: The chilling last shot, where the film zooms out to show McTeague handcuffed to a corpse in the middle of a desert.
- Thanatos Gambit
- Thirsty Desert
- Wanted Poster
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: You got the gold. Mazel tov. Too bad you're in the middle of a desert with no water.