Among the 1999 Los Angeles Film Critics award winners were GREED. Rick Schmidlin, Roger Mayer and Turner Classic Movies received a special citation for their meticulous reconstruction and promotion of Erich von Stroheim's Greed.

Congradulations Rick, Roger and everyone at TCM!! Well deserved!

Here's another review from "The Republic" by Stanley Kauffmann, which also says that Warner Brothers' will release the Picture on video tape early in 2000.

In the "Chicago Reader" Jonathan Rosenbaum writes about the reconstruction in "Fables of the Reconstruction." He was a consultant on Schmidlin's previous rehab effort "Touch of Evil." His detailed article gives insights into the nature of reconstruction work. "Chicago Reader"

I've just seen the virtual restoration of "Greed." I was stunned. Absolutely spectacular. It brought up a lot of "what if's." Read my review.

Running time is 239 minutes.

Robert Israel returned from Europe with the new score, and the team spent most of the last week matching film and music. The "Greed" restoration was finished on Thursday, Sept. 2d, and then shown at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado on the morning of the 4th. It was also the first time anyone working on the film had a chance to screen the completed work.

Director Rick Schmidlin is with the film at the Venice Film Festival where it will be shown today. Be sure to read Rick's comments on the Guest Book page. (Just click the link on the left-hand column.)

Todd McCarthy reviewed the GREED restoration for "Variety" on the 7th. It's online: click here.

Greed (99) will be shown at the Venice, Telluride, Toronto and Pordenone (moved to Sacile this year) film festivals. It will be on Turner Classic Movies on December 5, and will also play on PBS the following spring. A DVD release is possible if the reponse is good.

The entirely new musical score is being recorded in Prague under the direction of Robert Israel. A few stock melodies mentioned in the film by name will be used, but otherwise the new music is reportedly something of a Wagnarian opera.

The team is hard at work doing the colorization von Stroheim scripted in 1923, but even the Master knew that budgets have their limits.

The Greed '99 Reconstruction is a receiving top of the line treatment by Mr. Turner's organization, so that the release is anticipated to be a sparkling event with some surprises.

The New York Times covered the upcoming release of the restoration on August 5. Read about it at the NY Times

The score for "Greed" will be composed by Robert Israel, and recorded with a 60 piece orchestra. And there's a possibility that the film will go out on the festival circuit in the fall.

Work continues on reconstruction of "Greed" according to Von Stroheim's script of March '23.

The team has a first rough assembly laid out and has discovered that the '25 release uses shots from a variety of different scenes to try and compensate for the gaps in the story. The team is reorganizing the footage according to Von Stroheim's script of March 1923, which apparently is helping to smooth the dramatic flow and eliminate some of the awkward mismatched shots.

"The Hollywood Reporter" carried a story about the reconstruction, and the "Los Angeles Times" has a story of the film focussing on the film's early Handshiegl images that have been found.

The team has yet to settle on the musical score and are trying to track down an authentic cue sheet for the release. Anyone with thoughts or clues on the musical score can email me here and I'll forward it to the "proper authorities."

The reconstruction of "Greed" will follow the color tinting scheme indicated by Von Stroheim in the March 1923 shooting script. That script also called for the use of the Handschiegl Process to achieve an effect similar to the earlier hand or stencil-color processes.

Von Stroheim was one of the first important directors to use 2-color Technicolor and also incorporated complex tinting, toning and coloring systems when possible.

Except for the "Wedding March" technicolor sequence, original color Stroheim material is not included in current show prints, though both "Greed" and "The Merry Widow" did originally include Handschiegl process sequences on release.

The relevant sequences in "Greed" will be reconstructed using newly discovered Handschiegl process test frames which show the golden color applied to objects like gold nuggets and Mac's giant golden tooth.

LA WEEKLY carried an article about the restoration project and you can read it on line at www.laweekly.com/ink/99/11/film-chute.shtml

Reconstruction of GREED will be based on the "final shooting script," dated March 30, 1923, which is a later version than the published one and perhaps closer to Von Stroheim's intentions.

The following production stills are still missing and the reconstruction team is looking for them. If you or someone you know has any of them or has access to any of them, please drop me a line and I'll forward it to team.

The prefix is 179, and the individual numbers are: 17, 96, 119, 126, 128, 154, 194, 219, 220, 227, 228, 229, 232, 234, 266, 300, 301, 302, 351, 353, 354, 356, 358, 391, 392, 415, 416, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 429, 430, 431, 465, 470, 471, 479, 519, 521, 527, 528, 535, 549, 631, 632, 633, and anything 657 or over.

If you believe you have some knowledge of the stills that may be of benefit to the reconstruction team, please send a post.

Turner's "Greed" project will include a weekend of Von Stroheim films, including "The Man You Loved to Hate."

Rick Schmidlin is producing the reconstruction. Turner Classic Movies will insert production stills in the proper places according to the shooting script and use narration from the original Frank Norris text of "Mc Teague" to dramatize the story. The stills will be underscored by additional music from the Carl Davis score.

"This is obviously the most appropriate web site to post this announcement. As many of you may or may not know, TCM is restoring GREED, to be aired December 1999, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of it's release. The restoration will feature 600 stills from missing scenes, existing scenes shifted to reflect Von Stroheim's original script, and run about four hours (according to insider information here in Atlanta....). Bill Eggert, Executive Director, Silent Film Society of Atlanta " from the Guestbook