Greed ***** (1924, Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt) – Classic Movie Review 2458

Co-writer/director Erich von Stroheim’s swirlingly obsessive 1924 epic silent movie tale of money obsession is ambitious and masterly. It was a critical and financial failure on its initial release, but by the 1950s it began to be re-appraised as one of the greatest films ever made.

Von Stroheim was obsessed with accuracy and creating a work of art, and shot more than 85 hours of footage on the all-location shoot with two months spent filming the final sequence in Death Valley where sickness was rife. Gibson Gowland stars as Doc McTeague, a San Francisco dentist who marries his best friend Marcus Schouler (Jean Hersholt)’s girlfriend Trina (Zasu Pitts).

Trina wins a lottery prize fortune of $5,000 but the jealous Schouler informs the authorities that McTeague was practising dentistry without a license and the couple end up impoverished. McTeague becomes a violent alcoholic and Trina becomes obsessed with her winnings, refusing to spend any of it despite how poor they become. McTeague is driven to madness and murder and flees to Death Valley.

It was originally a 42-reel, seven-hours-plus film (462 minutes), thanks to the director’s own obsessive attention to realism and wringing every drop of emotion from Frank Norris’s 1899 source novel, McTeague, a Story of San Francisco. This von Stroheim edited to a 24-reel cut.

But the horrified and arrogant powers-that-be at the MGM studio had it recut (supervised by screenplay co-author June Mathis and cut by editor Joseph Farnham) to 10 reels in a 140-minute version, little more than a quarter of its original running time. Von Stroheim angrily disowned the final version, blaming Mathis for destroying his masterpiece.

Even so, despite the harsh chopping, it’s a remarkable experience, with many extraordinary sequences, not least the murder finale in Death Valley, and it represents both von Stroheim and silent film-making at their peak. Begun in 1923, it was finally premiered on December 4, 1924. Stroheim’s directing career was damaged for ever: he survived only through his acting.

The movie grandly announces it is ‘Personally directed by Erich von Stroheim’ and ‘Dedicated to my mother’. The 1990s video version boasts a Carl Davis score.

Also in the cast are Chester Conklin as ‘Popper’ Sieppe, Dale Fuller as Maria, Tempe Pigott as Mother McTeague, Sylvia Ashton as ‘Mommer’ Sieppe, Joan Standing as Selina, Austin Jewel, Oscar Gottell, Otto Gottell, Frank Hayes, Fanny Midgley, Hughie Mack, James F Fulton, Jack MacDonald, Lon Poff, Max Tryon, Gunther von Ritzau, William Mollenhelme, Hugh J McCauley, S S Simon, William Barlow, E Tiny Jones, Rita Revia, J Aldrich Libby, James Gibson and Jimmy Wang.

Only 12 ever people saw the full-length 42-reel version, which is now lost. In 1999 Turner Entertainment created a four-hour version of Greed that uses existing stills of cut scenes to reconstruct the film, with over 650 photos of the lost scenes. The restored version runs 239 minutes.  A new musical score was composed by Robert Israel.

The Death Valley scenes, including the final sequence, were filmed over two months during midsummer, in harsh conditions.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2458

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Trina and McTeague move from romance to tragedy.

The wedding scene makes innovative use of deep-focus cinematography.

Trina’s mother grotesquely devours her food in the wedding banquet scene.

Some scenes were gold tinted by Von Stroheim himself, hand colouring individual frames with stencils.