Doesn't continue to live

Rating: 1/10 (26 December 1998)

This WAS a great movie, and every film student should see it. But the audience today is more sophisticated and new technology nullifies the work that was put into it. For instance, getting depth of field by matting in the telephone in the foreground.. so what? This is like saying the IBM AT is a great computer (it had it's day, but by today's standards it's just not that good anymore - nobody continues to rave over it). The camera work that once created the dramatic tention is now blatant and sort of breaks the "third wall", becoming more distracting than dramatic.
As for story, it could have been packed into 30 minutes and had the same punch. There's not much in terms of plot points going on here (shall we say 2: one in the first minute and one in the last? ..or do you want to consider finding "Joseph Cotton's character has aged over the years" as a plot point??). Sub plots? ..you'll fall asleep waiting for one. The theme of "a man working his way up to filthy rich/what he pays for it and what he holds meaningful in life" is worth about 30 minutes ..tops. The ride there is visually stunning, if you haven't seen a movie since 1941.
A film student really needs to study this film because of the techniques and attention to "film making" - the ability to get exactly what you want: the "production value" (just like an engineerig student should know and understand basic addition and subtraction). But to the average audience today there is ABSOLUTELY NO ENTERTAINMENT VALUE in this "classic".