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" |
Greed's Six Missing Hours
by Michael Mills
Mayer, Thalberg and MGM
While Von Stroheim was in San Francisco filming Greed, Metro-Goldwyn studios added a new partner and a new name to the title. Louis B. Mayer was added to the lineup, and Mayer was a man who had definite vision for his Hollywood studio that did not include Von Stroheim.
Mayer wanted competent employees who agreed with his vision of box office entertainment and would do as they were told.
Louis B. Mayer was a tough, bombastic promoter and huckster from Minsk, Russia. Though he was good to his friends, his perception of who were his friends changed according to subtle cues that only Mayer, himself, could divine, and Louis B. Mayer was horrible to people he disliked or perceived stood in his way.
In 1929 Henry Carr, an LA Times assistant editor and sometime film writer wrote for Smart Set magazine, wrote that "Louis B. Mayer is brilliant, violent and soft-hearted. He rose by sheer force and brains. He gets a kick out of seeing actors cringe before him --- and admires those who don't."
When Mayer died, Sam Goldwyn is supposed to have said that so many people showed up at the funeral because "they wanted to make sure he was dead."
Louis B. Mayer had made his first bankroll distributing Birth of A Nation around New England and now he was determined to make a fortune making, distributing and exhibiting films at MGM. Mayer was going to clean house, and transform the loosely controlled, money losing operation.
He planned to build a top flight moneymaking organization his way, and his first move was to bring in Von Stroheim's Universal nemesis, The Boy Wonder, Irving Thalberg as MGM's chief studio executive.
Thalberg had left Universal and spent a short time at Hal Roach Studios, when Mayer offered Thalberg the position at MGM. By early 1924 Mayer had set the stage for a Thalberg and Von Stroheim MGM sequel to their Merry Go Round bout at Universal. This time the main event was called Greed.
Irving Grant Thalberg was a man with a simple way of doing business. He said, "In a business in which few men had the courage of their convictions, I decided that if I made them do things my way they would never know if their way would have been better."
Carr wrote of Irving Thalberg in Smart Set that, "the young Napoleon of the films," was the head of a cotton exporting firm at twenty. He is hard-boiled and a brilliant analyst; motion pictures are just cotton bales to him."
Thalberg centralized studio control and decision making in the hands of a few hand-picked producers. Before Thalberg Thomas Ince had ridden herd on his studio's directors as their producer, but Thalberg crowned the producer as king of the movies in Hollywood.
His producers were in charge and became the artistic heads of their movies. The producer hired and fired cast, company, crew, directors and writers, until the right team turned out the footage that the Thalberg wanted.
Though studio pictures began to look the same, the familiarity soothed audiences and improved the studio's cash flow and with that the studios became viable diversified businesses.
Next: Changing Times and The Struggle
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