Greed is a 1924 American silent psychological drama film written and directed by Erich von Stroheim and based on the 1899 Frank Norris novel McTeague. It stars Gibson Gowland as Dr. John McTeague; ZaSu Pitts as Trina Sieppe, his wife; and Jean Hersholt as McTeague's friend and eventual enemy Marcus Schouler. The film tells the story of McTeague, a San Francisco dentist, who marries his best friend Schouler's girlfriend Trina.
Greed was one of the few films of its time to be shot entirely on location, with von Stroheim shooting approximately 85 hours of footage before editing. Two months alone were spent shooting in Death Valley for the film's final sequence, and many of the cast and crew became ill. Von Stroheim used sophisticated filming techniques such as deep focus cinematography and montage editing. He considered Greed to be a Greek tragedy, in which environment and heredity controlled the characters' fates and reduced them to primitive bêtes humaines (human beasts), a naturalistic concept in the vein of Zola.
During editing, the production company merged with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), putting Irving Thalberg in charge of post-production. Thalberg had fired von Stroheim a few years earlier at Universal Pictures. Originally over nine hours long, Greed was edited against von Stroheim's wishes to about two-and-a-half hours. Only twelve people saw the full-length 42-reel version, now lost; some of them called it the greatest film ever made. Von Stroheim later called Greed his most fully realized work and was hurt both professionally and personally by the studio's re-editing of it.
The uncut version has been called the "holy grail" for film archivists, amid false claims of the discovery of the missing footage. In 1999, Turner Entertainment created a four-hour version that used stills of cut scenes to reconstruct the film. Greed was a critical and financial failure upon its initial release, but, by the 1950s, it began to be regarded as one of the greatest films ever made; film makers and scholars have noted its influence on subsequent films. In 1958, the film was voted number 6 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo.
In 1991, Greed was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
In 1908, John McTeague works in a gold mine in Placer County, California. A traveling dentist calling himself Dr. "Painless" Potter visits the town, and McTeague's mother begs Potter to take her son on as an apprentice. Potter agrees and McTeague eventually becomes a dentist, practicing on Polk Street in San Francisco.
Marcus Schouler brings Trina Sieppe, his cousin and intended fiancée, into McTeague's office for dental work. Schouler and McTeague are friends and McTeague gladly agrees to examine Trina. As they wait for an opening, she buys a lottery ticket. McTeague becomes enamored with Trina and begs Schouler for permission to court her. After seeing McTeague's conviction, Schouler agrees. Trina eventually agrees to marry McTeague and shortly afterwards her lottery ticket wins her $5,000. Schouler bitterly claims that the money should have been his, causing a rift between him and McTeague. After McTeague and Trina wed, they continue to live in their small apartment with Trina refusing to spend her $5,000.
Schouler leaves San Francisco to become a cattle rancher. Before he goes, he secretly reports McTeague for practicing dentistry without a license to ruin him. McTeague is ordered to shut down his practice or face jail. Even though she has saved over $200 in addition to the original $5,000 from the lottery ticket, Trina is still unwilling to spend her money. Money becomes increasingly scarce, with the couple forced to sell their possessions. McTeague finally snaps and bites Trina's fingers in a fit of rage. Later, he goes fishing to earn money, taking Trina's savings (now totaling $450).
Trina's bitten fingers become infected and have to be amputated. To earn money she becomes a janitor at a children's school. She withdraws the $5,000 from the bank to keep it close to her, eventually spreading it on her bed so she can sleep on it. McTeague then returns, having spent the money he took, and asks Trina for more. The following day McTeague confronts Trina at the school. After a heated argument McTeague beats Trina to death and steals her $5,000.
McTeague returns to Placer County and teams up with a prospector named Cribbens. Headed towards Death Valley, they find a large quantity of quartz and plan to become millionaires. Before they can begin mining, McTeague senses danger and flees into Death Valley with a single horse, the remaining money and one water jug. Several marshals pursue him, joined by Schouler. Schouler wants to catch McTeague personally and rides into Death Valley alone.
The oppressive heat slows McTeague's progress. Schouler's progress is also beginning to wane when he spies McTeague and moves in to arrest him. After a confrontation, McTeague's horse bolts and Schouler shoots it, puncturing the water container. The water spills onto the desert floor. The pair fight one last time, with McTeague proving the victor but Schouler has handcuffed himself to McTeague. Finally, McTeague is left in the desert with no horse and no water, handcuffed to a corpse and unable to reach the remaining money. “O cursed lust of gold! When for thy sake, the fool throws up in his interest in both worlds. First, starved in this, then damn’d in that to come.”
Sub-plots Stroheim's original edit contained two main sub-plots that were later cut. The point of these sub-plots was to contrast two possible results of Trina and McTeague's life together. The first depicted the lives of the junkman Zerkow and Maria Miranda Macapa, the young Mexican woman who collects junk for Zerkow and sold Trina the lottery ticket. Maria often talks about her imaginary solid gold dining set with Zerkow, who becomes obsessed by it. Eventually, believing she has riches hidden away, Zerkow marries her. He often asks about it, but she gives a different answer each time he mentions it. Zerkow does not believe her and becomes obsessed with prying the truth from her. He murders her and having lost his mind, leaps into San Francisco Bay.
The second sub-plot depicts the lives of Charles W. Grannis and Miss Anastasia Baker. Grannis and Baker are two elderly boarders who share adjoining rooms in the apartment complex where Trina and McTeague live. Throughout their time at the apartment complex, they have not met. They both sit close to their adjoining wall and listen to the other for company, so they know almost everything about each other. They finally meet and cannot hide their long-time feelings for each other. When they reveal their love, Grannis admits he has $5,000, making him just as rich as Trina but this makes little difference to them. Eventually, they marry and a door connects their rooms.
Cast
Gibson Gowland as Dr. John McTeague, a dentist ZaSu Pitts as Trina Sieppe, McTeague's wife Jean Hersholt as Marcus Schouler, McTeague's friend Prologue Jack Curtis as McTeague's father Tempe Pigott as McTeague's mother Florence Gibson as a hag Erich von Ritzau as Dr. "Painless" Potter, a traveling dentist Sieppe Family Chester Conklin as Hans "Popper" Sieppe, Trina's father Silvia Ashton as "Mommer" Sieppe, Trina's mother Austen Jewell as August Sieppe, Trina's younger brother Oscar Gottell as Max Sieppe, Trina's younger brother Otto Gottell as Moritz Sieppe, Trina's younger brother Joan Standing as Selina, Trina's cousin Max Tyron as Uncle Rudolph Oelbermann, Trina's uncle
Subplots Dale Fuller as Maria Miranda Macapa, Zerkow's wife Cesare Gravina as Zerkow, a junkman Frank Hayes as Charles W. Grannis, proprietor of the Modern Dog Hospital Fanny Midgley as Miss Anastasia Baker, Grannis's neighbor and later wife
Friends and Neighbors at Polk Street Hughie Mack as Mr. Heise, the harness maker E. "Tiny" Jones as Mrs. Heise J. Aldrich Libbey as Mr. Ryer Reta Revela as Mrs. Ryer S.S. Simon as Joe Frenna Hugh J. McCauley as the photographer William Mollenhauer as the palmist Others William Barlow as the Minister Lon Poff as the man from the lottery company James F. Fulton as Cribbens, a prospector James Gibson as a Deputy Jack McDonald as the sheriff of Placer County Erich von Stroheim as the balloon vendor
Production Background and writing
Greed is based on the American author Frank Norris's 1899 novel McTeague: A Story of San Francisco. Von Stroheim's interest in McTeague can be traced back to January 1920, when he told a journalist that he wanted to film the novel. He had lived in San Francisco in the early 1910s, living there in poverty like that of the story's characters. He eventually moved to Los Angeles, and worked his way up in the film industry from extra to acting in villainous or aristocratic roles in films. By 1919, von Stroheim had finally become a successful director in his own right at Universal Film Manufacturing Company, although one with a reputation of going over budget and over schedule.
Upon the appointment of Irving Thalberg as general manager at Universal, von Stroheim's defiance of commercial and industrial norms was no longer tolerated. After Thalberg's prior shutdown of Foolish Wives in 1921 (which had been shooting non-stop for eleven months), and after six weeks of filming on Merry-Go-Round, von Stroheim was fired from the studio on October 6, 1922. This was a step unprecedented in Hollywood, heralding a new era in which the producer and the studio would hold artistic control over actors and directors. By this time von Stroheim had received several offers of contracts with other studios, even before being fired from Universal. He had met with executives of the Goldwyn Company on September 14, 1922, less than a month before, and he formally signed with them in late November.
Von Stroheim chose his new studio because of the level of artistic freedom he was offered, which he had been denied at Universal under Thalberg. In March of that year, Frank Joseph (Joe) Godsol was elected president of Goldwyn Pictures. Board of Directors member Abe Lehr publicly promised that "each director will have his own staff and will be given every facility in putting into production his own individuality and personality." Von Stroheim signed a one-year, three-feature deal with Goldwyn on November 20, 1922. The deal stipulated that each feature would be between long, cost no more than $175,000 and be completed in fourteen weeks. It also promised von Stroheim $30,000 for each completed film.
Lehr initially hired von Stroheim in order to film a big-budget version of the operetta The Merry Widow, which the producer saw as a guaranteed hit; von Stroheim convinced Lehr to let him make Greed first, promising low costs. A press release of February 1923 said that although von Stroheim had "run rather freely to large sets in the past, [he] seems to have reformed—or surrendered—for it is announced that he will not build any sets at all."
Von Stroheim wrote a highly detailed 300-page script that contained camera movements, composition and tint cues. Among the changes that he made to Norris's novel was giving McTeague the first name of John and omitting Norris's antisemitism. McTeague had been filmed once before as Life's Whirlpool, a five-reel short by William A. Brady's World Pictures, starring Broadway star Holbrook Blinn as McTeague, which had been released in 1916. Film critics disliked this version and von Stroheim later criticized Blinn's performance. According to the film historian, Kevin Brownlow, Life's Whirlpool was also shot on location in Death Valley.