Greed

Although I am not a big fan of classics, I know a good movie when I see one. However the legendary butchering of the film is more interesting than the movie itself. The original film was over nine hours long and was trimmed down to just over two and a half hours. Director Erich von Stroheim condemned the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) for slashing his film. Continuity and subplots were torn from the masterpiece. Turner later tried to restore the film with publicity stills and new dialogue cards. This helped the film regain continuity and bring to light some of the subplots in the film. Turners new version is four hours and is splendidly done.

The film is about a miner named John McTeague who becomes a dentist through an apprenticeship. He soon opens his own business and meets a woman already involved with his friend Marcus. Marcus agrees to step aside since McTeague is obviously in love with the woman. After the woman named Trina wins $5000 in a lottery the story really takes off in what can only be described as a serious case of "Greed." I can tell no more without spoiling the film, but if you can stomach silent films this is one of the best.

The one great myth about this movie is that it would have been better if it had been four time longer. It's extremely good, at it is highly unlikely that the "unmutilated" version would have been better. In all likelihood, it would simply have been boring. It's a matter of faith among the conventional cinema intellegentia that the studio bosses routinely butchered great films. Judging from the self-indulgent dreck pumped out by unleashed geniuses once the studio system broke down, this is untenable. Stroheim was doubly lucky that the studio cut this film; the cutting made it good and further gave rise to the legend that an even better movie lived in the director's cut.

Erich von Stroheim made his film version of Frank Norris' novel ‘McTeague', and, as is well-known, it lasted over eight hours. The version which has survived is obviously nothing near that length, and cuts out many of the subplots from the book which had been planned and filmed.

What has survived is a broken masterpiece, starring Gibson Gowland, ZaSu Pitts, and Jean Hersholt, which is full of memorable images (not just the final sequences in the desert, but the trip out where McTeague and Trina fall awkwardly in love, and the scene where Trina rolls literally in the golden coins strewn on her bed) and makes you long for more of this film to turn up from the vaults.

There is a marvellous book available which reconstructs much of the lost material through stills, and much of this was amalgamated with the existing footage to ‘restore' the film during the late 1990s. Even in its butchered state, Greed is well worth a look.

I saw the Turner Classic Movies version of this with the still pictures implanted in missing scenes. Although a certain flow is lost, it comes across as a great film. What a shame that so much was destroyed. It tells the story of two pretty good people who should never have got together. Zasu Pitts who looks pretty glamorous at first, is obsessed with money. This obsession ends up destroying her life and McTeagues. There are scenes that are just uncomfortable and others that are horrible. The jockeying for position in the family with the husband willing to bend only so far leads to tragic consequences. Avarice will eventually take one down and Von Stroheim showed this to us. The scene with the two men fighting it out in the desert at the end is one of the most painful ever. Neither can ever hope to survive, yet their fixation on gold goes beyond their love of life. It is so pathetic. Even with all that missing footage, everyone should see this for the masterful presentation of the sick and dying characters. Deep down inside, I've always hoped that someone will open a vault or a supply cabinet, and there will be the rest of Von Stroheim's masterpiece. We can only hope, can't we.

Heavily edited MGM release version of Stroheim's 8 hour epic satisfies at 2 and a half hours -- you have to wonder if any extra length would have made it a little better or a little worse. To be sure, Stroheim probably ran the thing pretty slow when he projected it. Authentic detail in locations adds another level of interest, as we get to see parts of San Francisco, Oakland, and Placer County in the early 20s. The story is dark and involved, detailing the love of two people destroyed by their compulsive greed and neuroses. There is no moment in its story where the viewpoint is not pessimistic, except the image of dual humanity presented in McTeague's birds. Exceptional.