Greed

McTeague, who learned dentistry while working in a mine, opens a practice in San Francisco and marries Trina, his friend's fiancee. When she wins five thousand dollars in a lottery, the money ruins everything. Greed destroys the marriage, then the friendship, and finally both men in Death Valley. Erich von Stroheim directed, from Frank Norris's novel McTeague. The real story is at the editing bench. Stroheim shot the novel almost page by page and produced a first cut running over nine hours. The studio refused it; the film was reduced first to four hours and finally to two hours and twenty minutes. What was removed never came back. The negatives are said to have been melted for their silver, and the lost material counts among the most famous losses in film history. The Death Valley section was shot there in summer heat; the crew stayed in the desert for months and several fell ill. Even the surviving version is regarded as one of the harshest films of the silent era. Who it is for: viewers curious about silent cinema and early realism. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a whole work; what you watch is not the film its director made.