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Greed (Les rapaces)
Out of any American director of his era, only von Stroheim could have found such beauty in ugliness and created such fascination for the commonplace. He shot Greed with utter faithfulness to the Norris book and proposed to run the lengthy film on more than one evening, but the idea was far ahead of its time and the releasing studio, MetroGoldwyn-Mayer, insisted on radical trimming.
22 September 1885, Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]
17 June 1885, Santa Ana, California, USA
July 6, 1877 in Copenhagen, Denmark
23 January 1858, Naples, Italy
4 January 1877, Spennymoor, Durham, England, UK
12 July 1886, Copenhagen, Denmark
3 January 1894, Parsons, Kansas, USA
11 January 1886, Oskaloosa, Iowa, USA
May 28, 2003
[Stroheim's] obsession with realistic detail reached its zenith during the final sequences in Death Valley, where the actors suffered hugely for the director's art.
January 01, 2000
Von Stroheim's rep, after a long dormancy, has been on the rise, and this is the best evidence of his work you'll get until someone finds those lost five hours in some Ukrainian subcellar.
February 09, 2006
Even now its relentlessly cynical portrait of physical and moral squalor retains the ability to shock, while the Von's obsessive attention to realist detail is never prosaic.
June 09, 2004
Von Stroheim's groundbreaking film is still intriguing.
December 12, 2006
Even in its severely edited form Von Stroheim's masterpiece is just that; a masterpiece.
September 03, 2015
A fascinating, exhilarating, immensely satisfying experience.
June 17, 2008
Von Stroheim's rep, after a long dormancy, has been on the rise, and this is the best evidence of his work you'll get until someone finds those lost five hours in some Ukrainian subcellar.
September 03, 2004
Von Stroheim's butchered masterpiece
March 25, 2006
Mr. von Stroheim has not missed a vulgar point, but on the other hand his direction of the effort is cunningly dramatic.
January 06, 2002
Erich von Stroheim's Greed (1925), like the Venus de Milo, is acclaimed as a classic despite missing several parts deemed essential by its creator.
February 23, 2012
The picture brings to light three great character performances by Gibson Gowland as McTeague, Jean Hersholt as the chum, and ZaSu Pitts as the wife.
May 08, 2018
On behalf of the minority of film-goers who will, however even they may be shocked by [Erich von Stroheim's] fierce realism, perceive that he has made here a masterpiece in quite a new manner, one feels inclined to thank him.