Director: Erich von Stroheim
Writers: June Mathis, Erich von Stroheim, Frank Norris, Joseph Farnham
Photography: William H. Daniels, Ben F. Reynolds
Music: Robert Israel
Editors: Joseph Farnham, June Mathis, Glenn Morgan, Frank E. Hull, Rex Ingram, Erich von Stroheim, Grant Whytock
Cast: Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Tempe Pigott, Dale Fuller, Chester Conklin, Sylvia Ashton
Life is short and the story of Greed is long—the original cut delivered by director, cowriter, and coeditor Erich von Stroheim was pretty long itself, on the order of seven to 10 hours. Accounts differ, but many agree it's one of the great lost masterpieces of cinema. Fifty years ago it was on the short list of the greatest films ever made, according to the Sight & Sound poll of 1962, after only Citizen Kane, L'Avventura (?!), and The Rules of the Game. In 1924, the studio figuratively thanked Stroheim for his work and assigned the recut to June Mathis, who got it down to a little more than two hours. I might have something close to that version—mine, from a Turner Classic Movies broadcast, is 129 minutes. On YouTube there is access to versions (usually on dubious pay sites) running 104 minutes, 90 minutes, 83 minutes, and 60 minutes—probably others too if you dig enough. I didn't bother with them. At Amazon, the best I could find available for purchase was a single used Region 2 DVD of a 129-minute version for $30.
Greed is thus truly a lost movie at this time, and more so than others in the category such as The Magnificent Ambersons or Metropolis. Indeed, by happy circumstance, Metropolis has been nearly entirely restored since just 2010. People keep hoping a complete version of Greed will turn up too but so far it hasn't. As it happens, I also have the reconstructed version put together by producer Rick Schmidlin in 1999 for TCM, using Stroheim's original shooting script, extant footage, and production stills. That version comes in just under four hours, which puts us closer to Stroheim's original but still well short. Greed has only the most modest commercial value now. It flopped even its time, not least because its story is a total bummer. Certainly it's one of the harder movies even to see from the top 100 films on the big list at They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
Is it worth seeing? Oh geez, I knew you'd ask.
