Ben Gur 1925 and Greed 1924 on the Blue-Ray

[demonx]

Tell me when will be released on Blue Ray Ben Gur 1925 and Greed 1924. Who owns the rights to these films now. Cohen says that they are not. Criterion is silent. Paramount says that it does not plan to release. And do you plan at all? Or is the film already lost?

Sorry that I write with errors, I do not know very well about Ukraine and English.

[demonx]

Up

[MPeriolat]

The silent Navarro Ben-Hur has been included as an extra on previous releases of the Heston Ben-Hur on blu-ray. I'll check and see the status of it in a moment and update.

Greed hasn't been released on DVD or blu-ray stateside. Last release I know of was on home video back in the late 80s I think. Again, I'll check.

Greed's rights are with WB since it's an MGM release, sold to Turner back in the early 80s, WB got it as part of Time-Warner. Same with Ben-Hur.

EDIT: Yup, confirmed. 1924 Ben-Hur is an extra as part of any multidisk 1950s Ben-Hur release. Get the three disk set for 10-12 bucks on Amazon, you're done.

[demonx]

I know that Ben - Gur 1925 to be published on the 1959 edition. But he's in poor quality. And how to ask Warner to publish Greed 1924 and Ben Gur 1925? Can they somehow write a collective letter? And maybe it's just that the films with the films have become useless?

[man_westooth]

The 1925 Ben-Hur supplement on the Blu-ray set is in SD. I'm hoping that someday, Warner will come out with both versions of Greed (the original, cut version and the recent restoration, expanded with production stills and title cards based on the cut scenes that runs nearly four hours, shown on TCM a few years ago). The last time I saw Greed or King Vidor's The Crowd (another great silent that never got even a DVD reissue) were on MGM VHS tapes twenty or so years ago.

[demonx]

I also want ben-gur and Greed for Blue-Ray. I really love when they show how they restored the film. In what state was the film. How it was restored in the frames. Unfortunately this is almost not shown. Maybe you know such documentaries?

For the Journey to the Moon 1902 there was a separately shot documentary about how they found a color version, and how it was restored in 10 years.

[Dubstar]

Grrrr ...

[Cremildo]

Why do you write "Ben-Gur" instead of Ben-Hur?

[demonx]

Originally Posted by Cremildo

Why do you write "Ben-Gur" instead of Ben-Hur?

I'm not very friendly with Ukraine and with English. Google interpreter translated so to me, and I copied and did not look, and when I saw it was too late.

[levcore]

You should check out the 2016 version!

[demonx]

Ок

[Himmel]

Transformgurs.

[Dave Bannion]

Still waiting on Greed. If ever a film deserved a big Criterion release, it's Greed.

But if they or anyone else ever do release it, I hope the "theatrical" cut (the mutilated 2-hour version) is included in addition to the "restored" cut (the 4-hour version).

I appreciate the work put into the restored version, and it serves an academic purpose. But it's very difficult to enjoy Greed in this form because so much of the running time is devoted to still photographs. It's like watching a Ken Burns documentary with bits and pieces of Von Stroheim's scenes scattered throughout.

Not to mention, at least on the TCM showings, the film footage is at times very soft. We've been spoiled by seeing how good silent films can look in high definition (see Metropolis, e.g.), so much so that Greed in SD looks quite disappointing.

[theater dreamer]

Can’t believe this isn’t even available on DVD domestically. I’ve been scouring TCM’s schedule for months wanting to see this.

[taymo016]

The 1925 version of Ben-Hur is supposedly available in HD through DIRECTV. Can anyone with DIRECTV confirm that?

[Marcmovie1]

Back in 1992 when TNT was running the MGM Documentary “When the Lion Roars” (I think), the did a double header one night of the silent Ben-Hur & Greed. I stayed up all night recording them. I enjoyed both movies. The scope and size of the sets in Ben Hur are still impressive. Greed, was my favorite though. Tremendous film but I couldn’t imagine a 6 hour version.

[Shane Rollins]

Originally Posted by Dave Bannion

Still waiting on Greed. If ever a film deserved a big Criterion release, it's Greed.

But if they or anyone else ever do release it, I hope the "theatrical" cut (the mutilated 2-hour version) is included in addition to the "restored" cut (the 4-hour version).

I appreciate the work put into the restored version, and it serves an academic purpose. But it's very difficult to enjoy Greed in this form because so much of the running time is devoted to still photographs. It's like watching a Ken Burns documentary with bits and pieces of Von Stroheim's scenes scattered throughout.

Not to mention, at least on the TCM showings, the film footage is at times very soft. We've been spoiled by seeing how good silent films can look in high definition (see Metropolis, e.g.), so much so that Greed in SD looks quite disappointing.

With the restored version, I actually stopped seeing still images after a while and could actually visualize the scenes. Same with Metropolis, where after a while the 16mm scenes weren't even noticeable because I was so wrapped up in the story. (I even stopped seeing the intertitles because I could imagine them speaking the lines, I haven't gotten there with Greed yet.) As for the softness, they had to piece that together using SD footage, most likely the same Thames Silents master used for the 1990(?) VHS release, with color tinting added on. Very few film elements are known to exist, due to a variety of factors.

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

Can’t believe this isn’t even available on DVD domestically. I’ve been scouring TCM’s schedule for months wanting to see this.

I have a bootleg now, but back in 2015 when I first heard of Greed, I heard that Warner Home Video released a VHS and a DVD in 1999, with 10,000 units of each made. It was the 1999 restoration. I have seen the tape (which frequently commands big bucks), but I have never seen the DVD. I asked WHV/WAC for more info on the DVD and the movie as a whole (back before they went completely dark and silent), and all I got back was "we have no plans to release Greed and Freaks at this time". I do have a bootleg of Greed, sourced from a TCM airing of the movie between December 2005 and March 2006 (the 31 Days Of Oscar promo is what helped me date it), but I'd buy a legit copy of Greed the day it came out.

My real hope, and this is a stretch, is to locate the original score played during that legendary screening, record the complete score (which will also determine the exact length of the movie), re-time the images and film to play the exact length they would have in 1924, and fully restore the surviving film at 4K or higher. I would sit through all 8-10 hours of Greed, even in patchwork form.

[theater dreamer]

Freaks and Greed are high on my list of films I want to see, along with lost films like London After Midnight (I’ve seen the reconstruction), and Convention City (I’m a big Joan Blondell fan).

If I had a DeLorean….