The Great Gatsby Movies
The Great Gatsby movies are all an American romantic drama film based on the 1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby has several versions including a 1926 silent film.
- 1926 Version — (80 minutes)
- 1949 Version — (91 minutes)
- 1974 Version — (149 minutes)
- 2000 Version — (90 minutes)
- 2013 Version — (142 minutes)
1926
The silent film adaptation was made in 1926, just one year after the novel came out. That version has been lost, with only a one-minute trailer that survives to attest to its existence. Warner Baxter portrayed Jay Gatsby and Lois Wilson portrayed Daisy Buchanan. The film was produced by Famous Players–Lasky, and distributed by Paramount Pictures.
The film's director Herbert Brenon designed The Great Gatsby as lightweight, popular entertainment, playing up the party scenes at Gatsby's mansion and emphasizing their scandalous elements. The film had a running time of 80 minutes, or 7,296 feet.
1949
This version was directed by Elliott Nugent, and produced by Richard Maibaum, from a screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Cyril Hume. The film stars Alan Ladd, Betty Field, Macdonald Carey, Ruth Hussey, and Barry Sullivan, and features Shelley Winters and Howard Da Silva, the latter of whom later appeared in the 1974 version.
This version was delayed by censors and then heavily censored. Due to such censorship, film critics noted that the final film contained very little of "the flavor of the Prohibition era". It was said that the baneful influence of prohibition and the disillusionment of post-World War I" were conspicuously absent despite the Jazz Age setting.
