Thursday, April 2, 2020

Thursday Movie Picks #299: Greed (The Seven Deadly Sins)






This being Thursday, it's time for another edition of Thursday Movie Picks, the blogathon run by Wandering Through the Shelves. The first Thursday of the month brings another entry in the "Seven Deadly Sins" theme. Having done Lust and Gluttony, now we get to Greed. I had two movies in mind right away, and it took me a little bit of time to come up with a good third movie without using Michael Douglas in Wall Street. But I was able to:

Greed (1924). ZaSu Pitts wins $5,000 (in early 1920s dollars) in the lottery and converts it to gold, becoming obsessive about getting more gold. This ultimately leads to the destruction of her, her husband (Gibson Gowland), and her former lover (Jean Hersholt), both of whom also want the gold. Director Erich von Stroheim famously presented the bosses with a cut of the movie that ran about nine hours, which the producers eventually cut down to about 140 minutes because who was going to sit down to watch a nine-hour movie?



The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941). New Hampshire farmer James Craig wants more prosperity, so the devil, as Mr. Scratch (Walter Huston), preys upon Craig's greed by offering him wealth in exchange for his soul. The newfound wealth brings all sorts of problems to Craig and his family, and when the time comes for Mr. Scratch to redeem the soul, our farmer turns to the greatest lawyer of the day, Daniel Webster (Edward Arnold). The movie was also known as All That Money Can Buy because, despite being based on a famous short story, it was released shortly after The Devil and Miss Jones, and the producers didn't want the confusion.

Raton Pass (1951). Greedy Patricia Neal marries wealthy rancher Dennis Morgan. But it's really just a ruse to gain control of Morgan's ranch, first with railroad man Scott Forbes and then, when Forbes is horrified by Neal's actions, hired gun Steve Cochran. Morgan fights back with the settlers who have always hated him because rancher/settler conflicts were often a thing in these old westerns.

3 comments:

Brittani Burnham said...

I'm 0/3 on your picks but The Devil and Daniel Webster I'm a little familiar with only from hearing others talk about it.

joel65913 said...

I suspected we might match on your first pick. I really is custom made for the theme as well as being legendary. I'm not sure I could have sat through the entire original but the movie as it is offers an intriguing glance at what it was.

I wasn't bowled over by The Devil and Daniel Webster. It was decent but with a cast as good as this had I expected more.

Raton Pass is a pretty standard Western but for me the most memorable thing about it was seeing Patricia Neal cast as an outright villain. Unusual for her but of course she was up to the challenge.

I used Greed as my touchstone for the other two since in different ways that film inspired the makers of the others.

Greed (1924)-Small town dentist John McTeague (Gibson Gowland) makes an enemy for life when he falls for his best friend Marcus’s (Jean Hersholt) girl Trina (ZaSu Pitts) and marries her. Unexpectedly Trina wins a $5000 lottery (equivalent to almost 80 thousand in current dollars) which turns the once docile and retiring woman into an obsessed miser leading to enormous tragedy for all three. Director Erich von Stroheim’s controversial epic was originally over nine hours long and for the few who saw it said to be a masterwork. MGM demanded cuts with various editors hacking it down to just over two hours and destroying the rest. It has been restored to 239 minutes through the use of existing elements but the original is lost.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)-In Mexico wanderers Fred C. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart) and Bob Curtin (Tim Holt) befriend old prospector Howard (director John Huston’s father Walter who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar) and together they head to the Sierra Madre mountains to look for gold. They find treasure but it comes at a high price, first in the form of bandits roaming the wilderness but ultimately more so by the greed that consumes them. Though based on the B. Traven novel director Huston sited the ’24 Greed as a major influence.

Greedy (1994)-Elderly tycoon Joe McTeague (Kirk Douglas) is surrounded by his family, a pack of greedy vultures that include Phil Hartman, Ed Begley, Jr. and Bob Balaban, all circling him looking to get their hands on his cash. Joe seeing through their machinations lets it be known he might leave his money to his nurse Robin (Nancy Travis). In an attempt to convince him they are sincere they find estranged grandson Daniel (Michael J. Fox) but that leads to more trouble than they counted on. The ’24 film is given a comic twist here.

Birgit said...

I’m late but not too late. We match with Greed which I think is a masterpiece even in its butchered form. Zasu Pitts was excellent in her role as was Gibson Gowland. I have not seen the other 2 picks but the Devil and Daniel Webster( and Miss Jones) has been on my radar.