Erich Von Stroheim's "Greed"
Greed's Missing Hours
My article on "Greed's" missing pieces.
Greed Reconstructed
The six hour reconstructed version.
Background
On various aspects of the story and film.
Greed Picture Book
Stills and photos from "Greed" and Von Stroheim's career.
Links
Silents, Von Stroheim, Pitts, Norris, San Francisco, et al.
 | Erich von Stroheim's 1924 epic motion picture "GREED" |
Erich von Stroheim's 1941 Interview
Extracts from the New York Times interview with Erich von Stroheim by Lloyd Lewis in June, 1941, when Stroheim was apparing in "Arsenic and Old Lace" in Chicago.
"In the Chicago company of 'Arsenic and Old Lace' Erich von Stroheim, once famous for a sartorial splendour that was practically sinful, is now playing Jonathan Brewster, murderer and fugitive, in a suit that makes him look like a baseball umpire. Although this annoys him, knowing as he does that the public prefers him in a magnificent Austrian uniform, he wears the Brooklyn hand-me-down with fortitude, since he needs the thousand dollars a week which he is receiving.
"What he describes as 'Hollywood's boycott' of his directorial talents had reduced him, financially, in recent years, and he is glad to play grimy Mr. Brewster, even if stage acting is, in itself, a new and nervous trial.
"But after the show is over and he is in his hotel apartment he is the old Stroheim --- all but that insolent monocle. He lights his cigarette with an antique horse-pistol that flames from the firing-pin; he serves elaborate lobster salad a la buffet to his guests; he decorates little cigarette tables with silver spurs. As he strides about the suite talking, his back is like a ramrod, and his head, with its jagged duelling scars, is held high-just as erect and grim as when he was billboarded all over the world as 'The Man You Love To Hate' the film symbol of hauteur and Prussian military caste-snobbery.
"He talks with a wide vocabulary, a slight accent and a recurrently ironic memory of Hollywood:
'How long is 'Gone With the Wind?' he asks; then answers, 'Twenty-four reels!'
"He looks from under heavy lids at the ceiling, puts his palms against the sides of his chest, raises slightly on the balls of his feet, clicks his heels while on the floor and says, "Well, I made a picture in twenty-four reels, 'Greed', back in the 1920's, and Hollywood told me it was twelve reels too long. I had originally made it in forty-two reels and had cut it to twenty-four. I said that was all it could be cut without mutilation. I said Frank Norris' novel was a masterpiece, a classic; that I had been hired to film it just as it was, realistically; and that I had done so. I had worked months of the time without salary to be faithful to the book. I argued that the public would not know or care whether it was fourteen reels or twenty-four once the picture was shown. They said I was an idiot to imagine that people would sit through twenty-four reels. I proposed that we show it twelve reels in the late afternoon, take an hour out for dinner, then show twelve reels in the evening. I was told I was even more of an idiot.
"Stroheim's mouth clamps into a thin straight line like a sabre scar. He turns his eyes straight upon his interviewer, looks steadily, then says, 'Later on, Eugene O'Neill showed 'Strange Interlude' on this plan, and still later on David Selznick released 'Gone With The Wind' in twenty-four reels. And I am boycotted.'
"He sits down in a chair, but his back is still straight as a cavalry- man's in any seat, and his close-cropped head is very erect.
" 'If I should die tomorrow there would be sorrow in only one group in Hollywood, the workmen, the labourers, the artisans. I had no trouble with them; never! I had, and still have, friends among: them, real friends. I got on well with labourers for the plain reason that l was one of them' he goes on. 'I have always stood with them better than I have with the wealthy and the powerful. I could never get on with vice-presidents!' "
