Maybe it’s just the dying relevance of silent film in general but I hear people talk about Ambersons more than Greed these days. It’s probably the talkie white whale, at least.

When the 1917 Cleopatra clip emerged two years ago, I read a couple of takes that it was in fact our greatest lost film. (Though in that case, it’s completely lost rather than partially lost, which is maybe a distinction.)

“I thought they smelled bad on the outside!”

I actually agree with you that I don’t think a monolith 8-hour cut would result in a better film. I had meant to add to this review what material I’d really like to see added back to the MGM cut in lieu of some lazy intertitles, so I just went and revised the ending of this review and added some stills of the missing material since I was discussing it anyways.

Does sound pretty cool, maybe I oughtta just try the MGM cut. Give Thalberg this: it is undoubtedly true that I would never a workday-long moralizing silent movie about wretches in the 1890s, and I probably wouldn’t watch a four hour one either, at least without loving the bejeezes out of a two hour cut-down of it. Bummer that the other cuts don’t fully exist for the fans and for posterity though.