My thanks to Joseph McBride, who originally posted this text on December 8, 1999, at the tail end of an interview with Rick Schmidlin about his expanded version of Greed on a now-defunct website, CreativePlanet.com. I’ve omitted the Schmidlin interview here, but hope that Rick’s version (as well as the original MGM release version) will become available in this country on DVD and/or Blu-Ray — releases that are scandalously overdue. — J.R.
In the June 12, 1927, Directors’ Number of the Hollywood trade publication The Film Daily, each of the 10 directors chosen as the leading directors of the day selected his favorite film. The following is Erich von Stroheim’s contribution:
Erich von Stroheim selects Greed.
Of course, the picture on which I have my heart set the most at present is The Wedding March on which I have been working the past year and a half, but inasmuch as this picture has not been released, I will only dwell on past performances.
Looking back over the few productions I have done and endeavoring to calmly and dispassionately analyze each, there is just one that presents itself to my mind as being worthy of classification in your “What I Consider My Best Picture — And Why.” And strange to say, this picture was by far my least successful one. I refer, of course, to Greed.
To me — and I am not addicted to braggadocio so I trust that my words will be taken in the right light — to me Greed was a great picture. Not as it was released, but in the complete version which never saw the light of day beyond the studio projection room. The release print can be compared to a novel which has had two-thirds of its pages indiscriminately torn out. The remainder of the novel is what was left of Greed to show to film audiences.
All that McTeague needed to make it a great picture was someone with sufficient perseverance and enough insight into the frailties of human character to put the breath of life into (Frank) Norris’ characters. That I endeavored to do. That I did not succeed to a greater degree I charge to the fact that the results of my labors were never wholly shown.
I am not disappointed because of Greed. At first I was bitter, for I had labored strenuously for two years to make the picture faithful to the writings of Frank Norris, but time and the trials and tribulations of filmmaking have made me more philosophical. And then, I have come to realize that Fate will have its little joke, for wasn’t it The Merry Widow, made in exactly 11 weeks and two days, that placed me among the 10 leading directors of filmdom?
