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Greed: a film;
. . .Stroheim's masterpiece about human degradation, 'Greed' (1924), was also made at considerable expense, in large part because of location shooting, including scenes in Death Valley. The original ran 10 hours, much too long for commercial release; an inexperienced studio cutter reduced it to an hour and a half, and the work print was destroyed, as were Stroheim's versions of almost all of his films. Stroheim's extravagance ensured the demise of his directing career, although his acting career as a monocled seducer continued to flourish long after he had ceased to direct.
- GenresFilm
352 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1972
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September 2, 2020
Greed: a film by Erich von Stroheim is from the Classic Film Scripts series and was published in 1972. It contains the full shooting script of the original unedited movie, reviews and commentaries by the actors and cameramen involved with the picture, as well as a candid article by von Stroheim himself. As I had just watched the 239-minute partially restored version of the film the day before I started to read this book, and then watched the 133-minute general release that same evening, I was able to recall everything in the movie as I spent two weeks with this hefty script. At 352 pages this was also a weighty book as the paper was thick.
I am glad I watched the longer version of the movie first, as I now feel that the shorter version (albeit the version that was released to the public) would have been harder to follow because of continuity issues. I say this in retrospect after having read the script for the original 8½-hour movie. With the 239-minute or four-hour version still fresh in my mind I was able to fill in the backstories with the script. The entire film made so much more sense with the added scenes in the script, such as the McTeagues' deterioration from happy newlyweds to a miserly quibbling couple. This transformation was a slow evolution over the 8½ hours instead of the Jekyll and Hyde switch as depicted in the released print. Another detail found in the full script which was entirely cut out and not even included in the partially restored version depicted the reason Trina Sieppe needed to see the (impostor) dentist McTeague. She had been injured in an accident after she fell off a swing which her fiancé Marcus had been pushing. In both versions of the film I saw, she and Marcus simply showed up at McTeague's dental office. The two subplots, one excised completely and the other almost entirely from the released print were fleshed out in the script. Only hints of each subplot were included in the partial 239-minute restoration. One unfortunate character, that of Zerkow the junkman, was cut out entirely in the released print, so the subplot involving him never even existed.
Von Stroheim had the propensity to refer to McTeague in stage directions using the words "stupid" or "stupidly". Although I usually take notes to include passages of the text within my reviews, I knew that I could pick up the script and open it anywhere and without any great effort find such references, such as "The cashier roars and McTeague moves away, gazing stupidly at the blue pasteboard." and "McTeague looks up and nods stupidly as Marcus and Trina walk over towards the door.". The reader or movie viewer knows that despite being an unlicenced dentist McTeague is not the brightest of men and rather slow on the uptake. That said, the overuse of "stupid" made it seem as if von Stroheim wanted to portray him as an imbecile.
No matter what sources I have checked since seeing both versions of the film and reading the script, I could not find out how long the von Stroheim original was. Was it ten hours? The very first line about the shooting script states that it was ten hours. Or was it less than eight? Most sources claim 8½ hours. I recalled this inconsistency as I read the commentaries about shooting on location in Death Valley. Actor Jean Hersholt claimed that the temperature soared to 161°F, which is an exaggeration to say the least. Cameraman William Daniels wrote that it was 132°F in the shade and von Stroheim himself recalled that it was "142 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, and no shade.". Only the Daniels claim seems plausible.
Von Stroheim was a filmmaker schooled in realism; he shot "Greed" entirely on location in San Francisco and used no studio sets. The final scenes were set in Death Valley, which, in 1924, was not yet developed as a tourist destination. I myself have driven through Death Valley and even with roads and park offices it is still a desolate place that lives up to its name. The commentaries by those involved in the movie are most riveting when reading about these Death Valley scenes. Now that I have seen the movie I have to wonder if the horses, mules and canary actually died or were deliberately killed during the filming. The movie makes it seem as if the animals are genuinely suffering and I cannot imagine that in 1924 there were regulations in place to ensure humane treatment.
The experience of reading the full script was an eye-opener, as I was given access to the editing room where I managed to "see" the entire film before bits of it were cut out and left on the floor. I want to watch the four-hour restoration again, now able to fill in the blanks with what I gleaned from the script.
I am glad I watched the longer version of the movie first, as I now feel that the shorter version (albeit the version that was released to the public) would have been harder to follow because of continuity issues. I say this in retrospect after having read the script for the original 8½-hour movie. With the 239-minute or four-hour version still fresh in my mind I was able to fill in the backstories with the script. The entire film made so much more sense with the added scenes in the script, such as the McTeagues' deterioration from happy newlyweds to a miserly quibbling couple. This transformation was a slow evolution over the 8½ hours instead of the Jekyll and Hyde switch as depicted in the released print. Another detail found in the full script which was entirely cut out and not even included in the partially restored version depicted the reason Trina Sieppe needed to see the (impostor) dentist McTeague. She had been injured in an accident after she fell off a swing which her fiancé Marcus had been pushing. In both versions of the film I saw, she and Marcus simply showed up at McTeague's dental office. The two subplots, one excised completely and the other almost entirely from the released print were fleshed out in the script. Only hints of each subplot were included in the partial 239-minute restoration. One unfortunate character, that of Zerkow the junkman, was cut out entirely in the released print, so the subplot involving him never even existed.
Von Stroheim had the propensity to refer to McTeague in stage directions using the words "stupid" or "stupidly". Although I usually take notes to include passages of the text within my reviews, I knew that I could pick up the script and open it anywhere and without any great effort find such references, such as "The cashier roars and McTeague moves away, gazing stupidly at the blue pasteboard." and "McTeague looks up and nods stupidly as Marcus and Trina walk over towards the door.". The reader or movie viewer knows that despite being an unlicenced dentist McTeague is not the brightest of men and rather slow on the uptake. That said, the overuse of "stupid" made it seem as if von Stroheim wanted to portray him as an imbecile.
No matter what sources I have checked since seeing both versions of the film and reading the script, I could not find out how long the von Stroheim original was. Was it ten hours? The very first line about the shooting script states that it was ten hours. Or was it less than eight? Most sources claim 8½ hours. I recalled this inconsistency as I read the commentaries about shooting on location in Death Valley. Actor Jean Hersholt claimed that the temperature soared to 161°F, which is an exaggeration to say the least. Cameraman William Daniels wrote that it was 132°F in the shade and von Stroheim himself recalled that it was "142 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, and no shade.". Only the Daniels claim seems plausible.
Von Stroheim was a filmmaker schooled in realism; he shot "Greed" entirely on location in San Francisco and used no studio sets. The final scenes were set in Death Valley, which, in 1924, was not yet developed as a tourist destination. I myself have driven through Death Valley and even with roads and park offices it is still a desolate place that lives up to its name. The commentaries by those involved in the movie are most riveting when reading about these Death Valley scenes. Now that I have seen the movie I have to wonder if the horses, mules and canary actually died or were deliberately killed during the filming. The movie makes it seem as if the animals are genuinely suffering and I cannot imagine that in 1924 there were regulations in place to ensure humane treatment.
The experience of reading the full script was an eye-opener, as I was given access to the editing room where I managed to "see" the entire film before bits of it were cut out and left on the floor. I want to watch the four-hour restoration again, now able to fill in the blanks with what I gleaned from the script.
May 27, 2014
I was intrigued by Erich von Stroheim's 1924 silent classic Greed. It was originally filmed as an eight- or ten-hour movie (sources vary) but was forced by the studio to go through several rounds of editing, until it was reduced to roughly two hours. Only this "mutilated" version survives. Finding an intact copy of the original version is considered one of the holy grails of silent film historians.
After watching the edited version on TCM, I was motivated to learn more about the film, and that led me to this book. It's 352 pages in length, with the first 32 pages devoted to historical material extracted from letters, magazine articles, and the like. The remaining 320 pages are the original shooting script, with notations showing (not in the most clear manner, unfortunately) which portions were edited and where the original intertitles had been modified.
Reading the script for Greed was a lot more choppy than reading a play, because there are so many camera directions included. It took me a while to find the rhythm. It's a mildly entertaining story. Although it is, of course, a work of fiction, I found it more interesting as a look behind the scenes at how movies were made during the silent era.
I love the silent movies, I really do, but I sometimes have trouble following what's going on. This is especially true of some of the early shorts, like Griffith's Musketeers of Pig Alley where intertitles were used very sparingly. I don't know if audiences of the time were more accustomed to this type of storytelling, or if they were as confused as I sometimes am.
An example, from Greed:
How do you convey all that in pantomime? Is there a gesture that means "the coming of the dentist is a great intervention of Fate"? Unfortunately, this scene isn't one that survives; I would have loved to have seen how well the actress playing McTeague's mother (Tempe Piggott) pulled this off. My guess is that, in editing, an unplanned intertitle would have been inserted to help clarify the mother's point, but who can say for sure?
One of the more memorable scenes in the surviving portion of the film is the funeral procession that passes outside the window as Mac and Trina are getting married. The description in the screenplay (quoted below in its entirety) is very sparse. A reader who had never seen the film would probably give it little notice. It leaves me wondering what else might have been lost in translation, especially since the full-length Greed was called by some the greatest picture that had ever been made.
The book's introduction states that the only surviving prints of Greed are in black and white, with all of the original hand-tinting lost. The version I saw on TCM did have the bright yellow tinting on the various gold objects in the movie, as well as on MacTeague's canaries. I don't know if a version with the original tinting was discovered since the book's publication in 1972, or if what I saw on TCM was the result of the work of a recent restoration. Stroheim's script had more references to color than I would expect for a black-and-white movie. It appears that some scenes were intended to be filmed in full color. (Not many people realize that color came to the movies before sound did; there are full-color scenes in Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera, for example.) There are a lot of references to blue, pink, or red clothing, and to blue and purple bruises. I don't know if the original print had more hand-tinting than just the yellow that we see today.
Overall, I'd say that this book is definitely worth reading for those who have a particular interest in the silent era, and that it would be horribly dull for anyone who doesn't.
After watching the edited version on TCM, I was motivated to learn more about the film, and that led me to this book. It's 352 pages in length, with the first 32 pages devoted to historical material extracted from letters, magazine articles, and the like. The remaining 320 pages are the original shooting script, with notations showing (not in the most clear manner, unfortunately) which portions were edited and where the original intertitles had been modified.
Reading the script for Greed was a lot more choppy than reading a play, because there are so many camera directions included. It took me a while to find the rhythm. It's a mildly entertaining story. Although it is, of course, a work of fiction, I found it more interesting as a look behind the scenes at how movies were made during the silent era.
I love the silent movies, I really do, but I sometimes have trouble following what's going on. This is especially true of some of the early shorts, like Griffith's Musketeers of Pig Alley where intertitles were used very sparingly. I don't know if audiences of the time were more accustomed to this type of storytelling, or if they were as confused as I sometimes am.
An example, from Greed:
Medium close-up of both, with the top of the table in shot. Mother McTeague starts to tell him in pantomime that his future here does not amount to anything and is not worthy of a man; that she has great ambitions for him and great hopes for his future; that the coming of the dentist seems to her a great intervention of Fate; that she has talked to the dentist and that he suggested that Mac should go with him; that she agreed with him and that she has packed all this things. She points to them.
How do you convey all that in pantomime? Is there a gesture that means "the coming of the dentist is a great intervention of Fate"? Unfortunately, this scene isn't one that survives; I would have loved to have seen how well the actress playing McTeague's mother (Tempe Piggott) pulled this off. My guess is that, in editing, an unplanned intertitle would have been inserted to help clarify the mother's point, but who can say for sure?
One of the more memorable scenes in the surviving portion of the film is the funeral procession that passes outside the window as Mac and Trina are getting married. The description in the screenplay (quoted below in its entirety) is very sparse. A reader who had never seen the film would probably give it little notice. It leaves me wondering what else might have been lost in translation, especially since the full-length Greed was called by some the greatest picture that had ever been made.
High angle medium shot as McTeague and Trina kneel down. McTeague puts the ring on Trina's finger, while in the background a funeral hearse is seen through the window, slowly passing by in the street below.
Quick lap dissolve to a medium shot of the funeral procession and hearse, just long enough to make sure that no one in the audience has missed it.
Quick lap dissolve back as the couple's hands are joined.
The book's introduction states that the only surviving prints of Greed are in black and white, with all of the original hand-tinting lost. The version I saw on TCM did have the bright yellow tinting on the various gold objects in the movie, as well as on MacTeague's canaries. I don't know if a version with the original tinting was discovered since the book's publication in 1972, or if what I saw on TCM was the result of the work of a recent restoration. Stroheim's script had more references to color than I would expect for a black-and-white movie. It appears that some scenes were intended to be filmed in full color. (Not many people realize that color came to the movies before sound did; there are full-color scenes in Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera, for example.) There are a lot of references to blue, pink, or red clothing, and to blue and purple bruises. I don't know if the original print had more hand-tinting than just the yellow that we see today.
Overall, I'd say that this book is definitely worth reading for those who have a particular interest in the silent era, and that it would be horribly dull for anyone who doesn't.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews