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
Time is Money
In the '20s a movie theater charged 25 cents for a two hour film showing, and the four hour epic presentation that Von Stroheim requested was still years in the future. From Mayer's point of view, cutting the film down to two hours was a sound financial move for MGM. To recoup $troheim's costs, Mayer lopped off the offending screentime, released a two hour version at Christmas 1924 and juggled the books.
Writing about Greed in 1955 Herman Weinberg noted that artists and art were so rare and precious that the world could not afford to lose a single artist or work of art, but that a few businessmen here or there wouldn't matter.
But when the dust finally settled, mammon broke the muse. Mayer's vision of Hollywood turned MGM into an all-signing, all-dancing, movie cash cow that stayed away from men like Von Stroheim, and their disturbing films.
What's Missing
Greed's reputation is based on what MGM released, which is a situation similar to estimating a dinosaur's height, weight and speed from its fossilized tracks. We can only speculate on the quality of the missing six hours by looking at the remaining two and inspecting production stills and memoirs about the missing footage but we haven't experienced the living, breathing film.
Greed's missing hours forms a long list of Norris sub-plots and Von Stroheim's repeating visual motifs. This is a partial list of what's missing:
*About six hours are missing. 75% of the film is missing. Plots, characters, action, scenes and sequences and scenes that relate to the main action and the theme of the lust for wealth are missing.
*The entire opening of the film is missing. It showed McTeague's family, early life in the mining towns and how he became who he was and how he learned to pull teeth.
*Trina changes from girl to old hag, but the transformation is missing.
*The Sieppe family is missing. Trina's mom, dad and siblings leave for Los Angeles after her wedding. Mama writes to Trina for some money, but Trina loves money more than them. In the remaining footage, Trina's family appears only as lighthearted characters.
*The Zerkow-Maria love affair is missing. The junkman Zerkow hungers for gold, and falls in love with the cleaning woman Maria. She tells him a story of her family's buried fortune over and over. They marry and have a baby. The baby dies, and Maria can no longer remember the story. In the end Zerkow's mania overcomes him, and he kills Maria. Then himself. Maria sells Trina a lottery ticket, and that's all you see of her. Zerkow is never seen.
*The blooming romance between Baker and Grannis, the two elderly residents of McTeague's Elite Apartment building is missing. They are the counter-point to the crazed lust for wealth around them, finding warmth, love and compassion in simple values and human intimacy.
*The Marcus Schuler is pared down considerably. He was Doc's pal, Trina's beau, then Polk Street bigwig and the cause of much trouble.
*Many of the Death Valley sequences that showed the slow deterioration of McTeague and Marcus are missing. Before making it to the Valley, Doc was other places, too, but they were cut out.
*A long list of sequences and scenes that showed Trina's slow breakdown and descent and many scenes showing the changes in Trina's relationship with her husband are gone. Trina was the main character.
*Trina's Uncle Oelbermann is missing. He owns a toy store and sells the wooden figures that she carves. He was the custodian of her horde.
*Stroheim laced the original version with repeating motifs showing various characters lusting for gold, riches and money and sequences of long skeletal arms fondling coins.
As of now, all missing.
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