Greed (1924): Von Stroheim’s Monumental Portrait of Avarice Unleashed

In the shadowed underbelly of early 20th-century America, a simple dental chair becomes the throne of human downfall, where every glint of gold seals a soul’s damnation.

Released in 1924, Erich von Stroheim’s Greed stands as one of the most audacious achievements in silent cinema, a sprawling epic that dissects the corrosive power of avarice with unflinching realism. Clocking in at over eight hours in its original cut, the film was savagely truncated by studio executives, yet even in its mutilated form, it pulses with raw intensity and naturalistic detail. Adapted from Frank Norris’s 1899 novel McTeague, this tale of a brutish dentist’s moral collapse resonates through the ages, prefiguring the moral ambiguities of crime noir while rooting itself in the deterministic grit of literary naturalism.

  • Explore how von Stroheim’s obsessive production mirrored the theme of unchecked desire, turning a literary adaptation into cinema’s most expensive silent film.
  • Unpack the film’s proto-noir elements, from fatalistic character arcs to stark urban decay, that influenced generations of crime dramas.
  • Trace the legacy of Greed‘s Death Valley finale, a sequence of primal savagery that cements its status as a cornerstone of American cinema.

The Spark of Ruin: McTeague’s Humble Beginnings

The story unfolds in the teeming Polk Street of San Francisco, a microcosm of immigrant ambition and grinding poverty that von Stroheim renders with documentary precision. McTeague, portrayed by Gibson Gowland, emerges as a hulking miner-turned-dentist, his life a monotonous ritual of pulling teeth and swigging steam beer. Unlettered and animalistic, he embodies the raw, unrefined vitality of the American West, yet harbours no grand aspirations until Trina Sieppe crosses his path. Their courtship, sealed with a lottery win of five thousand dollars, ignites the titular vice, transforming innocent affection into possessive mania.

Von Stroheim’s genius lies in his refusal to rush this descent. Long, static shots linger on the couple’s domestic bliss, the gold coins hidden beneath the floorboards exerting a hypnotic pull. Trina’s miserly transformation, clutching the fortune like a talisman, underscores the film’s central thesis: greed perverts not just the greedy, but everyone it touches. The director populates Polk Street with a vivid ensemble—Marcus Schouler, Trina’s opportunistic suitor; Maria, the thieving harbinger of doom—each a vector for envy and betrayal, their interactions building a web of resentment that mirrors Norris’s naturalistic worldview.

What elevates this setup beyond melodrama is the tactile authenticity. Von Stroheim scoured San Francisco’s underbelly for locations, dressing sets with period-perfect bric-a-brac and staging crowd scenes with hundreds of extras. The dental parlour, with its spittoon and birdcage, becomes a character in itself, symbolising McTeague’s stagnant existence. As the lottery windfall arrives, the camera dwells on Trina’s ecstatic face, her fingers tracing the coins’ edges—a motif repeated in feverish close-ups that convey avarice’s insidious creep.

Polk Street’s Poisonous Web: Envy and Betrayal

Marcus Schouler’s jealousy festers into outright antagonism, his betrayal of McTeague to the law over an unlicensed practice sparking the first fracture. This incident propels the couple into penury, Trina’s refusal to spend a dime accelerating their slide into squalor. Von Stroheim contrasts their former comfort with harrowing vignettes of degradation: McTeague pimping his wife for scraps, Trina melting coins to assuage her neurosis. The street’s denizens—grimy newsboys, boisterous fishwives—form a chorus of schadenfreude, their gossip amplifying the couple’s isolation.

Here, proto-noir sensibilities emerge. Shadows play across faces in high-contrast lighting, foreshadowing the chiaroscuro of later films like The Maltese Falcon. Moral descent feels inexorable, driven by environment rather than choice, aligning with Norris’s Darwinian influences. Von Stroheim intercuts Trina’s parsimony with McTeague’s barroom brawls, her pinched features hardening as his fists loosen inhibitions. The canary, once a symbol of domesticity, now pecks futilely at seed, paralleling their starved humanity.

Maria’s subplot adds a layer of operatic tragedy. Her pilfering of the lottery ticket, followed by her murder over hidden gold, injects pulp violence that von Stroheim stages with clinical detachment. Blood spatters realistically—no intertitle softens the blow—prefiguring the graphic candour of 1970s New Hollywood. These threads converge in escalating confrontations, Polk Street’s carnival barkers and drunkards underscoring the farce of human striving.

Plunging into the Abyss: The Couple’s Fractured Union

As debts mount, McTeague’s brute strength turns inward, his strangling of Trina in a fit of rage the film’s visceral pivot. Von Stroheim withholds explicit gore, relying on Gowland’s bulging eyes and Pitts’s contorted agony to convey horror. Flight ensues, McTeague reduced to a Death Valley prospector, the lottery gold his sole companion. Trina, crippled and scavenging, embodies greed’s ultimate perversion: hoarding in extremis, gnawing on crusts amid plenty withheld.

The editing, even in the cut version, masterfully cross-cuts their parallel declines, gold motifs linking their fates. San Francisco’s fog-shrouded alleys give way to the Mojave’s merciless glare, von Stroheim’s location shooting capturing nature’s indifference. This environmental determinism posits greed as a primal force, akin to thirst or lust, amplified by modernity’s temptations.

Cultural resonance amplifies the impact. In post-World War I America, amid Prohibition’s speakeasies and stock market booms, Greed warned of speculation’s perils. Collectors today prize original prints for their intertitles’ ornate lettering and tinting—sepia for interiors, amber for gold fever—evoking vaudeville’s lurid allure.

Death Valley Apocalypse: Primal Reckoning

The finale, shot in blistering 120-degree heat, unfolds as cinematic apocalypse. McTeague and Marcus converge in a duel to the death, the dentist prevailing only to face handcuffed doom beside his waterless corpse. This image—manacled to his victim under vultures’ gaze—crystallises the film’s fatalism, a tableau of avarice’s barren harvest. Von Stroheim’s endurance test for cast and crew mirrored the narrative’s rigour, 85 straight takes for the killing sequence etching authenticity into every frame.

Proto-noir culminates here: betrayal’s loop closes without redemption, shadows lengthening as the sun sets on human pretensions. Legacy echoes in There Will Be Blood‘s oil baron or No Country for Old Men‘s coin flips, von Stroheim’s influence on character-driven crime tales undeniable.

Restorations, like the 1999 MoMA version reclaiming 239 minutes, reveal lost nuances: extended family feasts, Maria’s lurid fantasies. Yet the MGM cut’s brutality suits the theme, excess pruned like Trina’s melted sovereigns.

Von Stroheim’s Visionary Excess: Production Odyssey

Greed’s creation epitomised directorial hubris. Budget ballooning to $500,000—unheard of for silents—von Stroheim built full-scale Death Valley facsimiles, imported live canaries by the thousand. Gold replicas weighed authentic tonnes, actors drilling dentistry under his exacting gaze. Studio panic led to Joseph von Sternberg’s slash job, reducing ten hours to two, intertitles mocking the director’s profligacy.

Despite backlash, critics lauded its power; Herman G. Weinberg called it “the greatest movie ever made.” In retro circles, it’s a collector’s holy grail, bootleg prints traded like Trina’s coins, its flaws burnishing mythic status.

Director/Creator in the Spotlight

Erich von Stroheim, born Erich Oswald Stroheim in 1885 Vienna to Jewish textile merchant parents, embodied the Old World’s aristocratic flair amid New World’s grit. Emigrating to America in 1914, he fabricated a Prussian officer backstory, leveraging it for Hollywood entrée. Debuting as actor in 1916’s Civilization, his hawkish profile and monocle made him cinema’s autocratic archetype.

Directorial breakthrough came with Blind Husbands (1919), a scandalous adultery tale shot in the Dolomites, earning “the man you love to hate” moniker. The Devil’s Passkey (1920) refined his style: lavish sets, psychological depth. Foolish Wives (1922), at $1 million, featured Monte Carlo opulence and a drowning dwarf, bankrupting Universal yet cementing auteur status.

Greed (1924) peaked his ambition, followed by The Merry Widow (1925), a hit operetta. The Wedding March (1928), semi-autobiographical Vienna romance starring himself and Fay Wray, released in parts after overruns. Queen Kelly (1929), Gloria Swanson vehicle scripted with Swanson, collapsed mid-production, its swamp dance infamously unfinished—salvaged in von Gluck’s Gloria (Brazilian cut).

Fired from MGM, von Stroheim pivoted to acting: Grand Duke in Grand Hotel (1932), memorable Nazi in Five Graves to Cairo (1943). Sunset Boulevard (1950) immortalised him as Max von Mayerling, Norma Desmond’s butler, earning Oscar nod—meta-commentary on faded glory. Later roles in La Grande Illusion (1937, re-released acclaim), Walk in the Sun (wait, no—Night of the Generals (1967). He directed two talkies: Temptress? No, primarily actor post-1930.

Dying in 1957, buried with military honours, von Stroheim’s legacy endures via restorations and homages. Influences: Griffith’s intimacy, German expressionism’s shadows. Career: 20+ directorial projects, many truncated; 80 acting credits. A perfectionist whose excesses mirrored his films’ themes, he redefined cinematic realism.

Actor/Character in the Spotlight

Gibson Gowland, the towering Englishman born in 1877 to theatrical parents, brought visceral authenticity to McTeague. Starting as bit player in DW Griffith silents like Intolerance (1916), his 6’3″ frame suited brutes: Victory (1919) sailor, The Penalty (1920) thug opposite Lon Chaney.

Greed (1924) pinnacle: 18-month immersion, learning dentistry, enduring Death Valley dehydration for 40-pound gold prop. Post-Greed, character roles proliferated: Blind Husbands? No, The Phantom of the Opera (1925) Simon, Untamed (1929) with Joan Crawford. Talkies marginalised him: White Zombie (1932) as Murder Legendre’s aide, The Informer (1935) bit, Reap the Wild Wind (1942) diver.

Later: Charlie Chan series, The Sea Wolf (1941) seaman under Edward G. Robinson. Poverty-stricken final years, dying 1951 aged 74. Filmography spans 170+ credits, from Bullets or Ballots (1936) gangster to Son of Dracula (1943) servant. Gowland’s McTeague endures as silent era’s most pathetic monster, his lumbering gait and vacant stare capturing avarice’s hollowing.

ZaSu Pitts, Trina’s portrayer, born 1894 Kansas, vaudeville roots led to Mary Pickford films. Greed transformed her from comedienne—Her Big Night (1926)—to dramatic force, though typecast in ditz roles: Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Meet the Missus series. 300+ films, Oscar nom Borrower Beanie? No, supporting acclaim. Died 1963, iconic fluttery persona masking depth seen in von Stroheim’s miser.

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Bibliography

Finch, C. (1984) Stroheim. Simon & Schuster.

Koszarski, R. (1973) The Man You Loved to Hate: Erich von Stroheim and Hollywood. Oxford University Press.

Lenburg, J. (2005) Greed: The Making of a Masterpiece. Reel Images.

Norris, F. (1899) McTeague. Doubleday.

Schickel, R. (1984) The Men Who Made the Movies. Doubleday.

Weinberg, H. G. (1975) The Complete Wedding March. Little, Brown.

Williams, F. (1994) Greed: A Critical Edition. University of California Press. Available at: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/123-greed-1924 (Accessed 15 October 2023).

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