"If you cut one more frame I shall never speak to you again." On April 10, 1924, the Goldwyn Company officially agreed to merge with Metro Pictures, putting von Stroheim's nemesis Thalberg directly in charge of Greed. Von Stroheim and Louis B. Mayer had a lengthy confrontation over the film's editing, which according to both men ended with von Stroheim claiming that all women were whores and Mayer punching him. Mayer disliked the film because of its lack of glamor, optimism, or morality and considered it to be a guaranteed flop. Studio editing MGM executives screened Greed at full length once to meet contractual obligations. Idwal Jones, a San Francisco critic, attended the all-day screening and wrote that while some of the scenes were compelling, von Stroheim's desire that "every comma of the book [be] put in" was ultimately negative. MGM then took control and re-edited it. The studio ordered June Mathis to cut it down further; she assigned the job to an editor named Joseph W. Farnham. Farnham was a well-known "titles editor", who patched scenes together using title cards to keep continuity. His contributions to Greed include the notorious title cards "Such was McTeague" and "Let's go over and sit on the sewer", which were snickered at for years. Eventually, Farnham reduced Greed to 10 reels, totaling . Von Stroheim said that the film "was cut by a hack with nothing on his mind but his hat." He later bitterly lamented that Greed was made before the financial success of Eugene O'Neill's five-hour play Strange Interlude in 1928. Von Stroheim angrily disowned the final version, blaming Mathis for destroying his masterpiece. One week before Greeds release the New York State Motion Picture Committee (which censored films) demanded several more cuts on moral grounds. These cuts included the administration of ether in the dental scenes and certain instances of foul language. Although these cuts were made to prints that were screened in New York State, the footage was kept in many other prints. Difference between von Stroheim's cut and MGM's cut The main cuts to Greed were the elimination of its two sub-plots and other entire sequences, while individual scenes were often not touched. Commenting about the cuts made in the film to the Los Angeles Times, Thalberg stated: Thalberg also stated that he "took no chances in cutting it. We took it around to different theaters in the