Greed

Erich von Stroheim (director, screenwriter)
Frank Norris (novel)
June Mathis (screenwriter)
Zasu Pitts, Gibson Gowland, Jean Hersholt (starring)

N.p. N.p., Circa 1924. Vintage reference photograph from the 1924 film, showing actors Zasu Pitts and Gibson Gowland staring bleakly into an empty room. Manuscript ink and pencil annotations on the verso regarding layout, along with the stamp of a French publication.

From the archive of film historian and author Joel Finler.

Based on the 1899 novel "McTeague" by Frank Norris. An impoverished miner-turned-dentist wins the lottery, but the ensuing fortune threatens to ruin the lives of everyone it touches. Director Erich von Stroheim's masterpiece, one of the first films to be shot entirely on location, in San Francisco and Death Valley, using (what were then considered) sophisticated and relatively new filming techniques, such as montage editing and deep focus.

Stroheim's first cut of the film was a mammoth, 9.5 hour presentation, edited down to two and a half hours against his wishes. All that survives today is a restored, slightly choppy but coherent 240-minute version, supplanted with still photographs, that conveys to the viewer the unimaginable grandeur of the original.

7 x 5 inches. Near Fine.

National Film Registry. Ebert I. Godard, Histoire(s) du cinema. Rosenbaum 1000.


[Book #155099]