Greed (1923)

Silent cinema’s most famous ‘lost’ film, Erich von Stroheim’s monumental study of three ordinary lives destroyed by avarice was ruinously edited down by the studio.

The career of Austrian-born director Erich von Stroheim is notorious for the level of interference he suffered from his Hollywood employers. Greed is the most infamously broken-backed of his films, originally screened in a version close to ten hours long but nervously hacked down by the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio to conventional length.

Adapting the 1899 novel McTeague by Frank Norris about the downfall of a lottery-winning woman and the two best friends who love her, Von Stroheim aimed to render the book in complete detail, allowing screen time to develop characters of startling psychological intensity. Expensively, he also insisted on shooting on location, including in the debilitating heat of Death Valley for the film’s tragic climax. Though the bulk of Greed is lost, what remains is considered a milestone for its powerful fusion of naturalism and melodrama.

1923 USA
Directed by
Erich von Stroheim
Produced by
Louis B. Mayer, Erich von Stroheim
Written by
June Mathis, Erich von Stroheim, June Mathis
Featuring
ZaSu Pitts, Gibson Gowland, Jean Hersholt
Running time
109 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Greed

Critics

Joana Ascensão
Portugal
Martyn Conterio
UK
José Manuel Costa
Portugal
André Dias
Portugal
Francisco Ferreira
Portugal
David Katz
UK
Ehsan Khoshbakht
UK/Iran
Richard Koszarski
USA
Eric Le Roy
France
Peter Matthews
UK
Joan Mellen
USA
Derek O'Connor
Ireland
Julio Pérez Perucha
Spain
Jonathan Rosenbaum
USA
Lucy Sante
USA
Ariel Schweitzer
France/Israel

Directors

Margot Benacerraf
Venezuela
Volker Schlöndorff
Germany

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