Greed (1924) on Netflix
John McTeague, a San Francisco dentist, is drawn to Trina Sieppe, the cousin and intended fiancée of his friend Marcus Schouler. Trina's lottery ticket brings her $5,000.
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- Netflix4.4/5
- IMDb8.0/1011,707 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1908, John McTeague is a miner in Placer County, California, when a traveling dentist stops in town and, at his mother's request, takes him on as an apprentice. McTeague goes on to practice dentistry in San Francisco. His friend Marcus Schouler brings his cousin Trina Sieppe to the office for treatment; Schouler is her intended fiancée. McTeague becomes enamored of Trina and asks Schouler for permission to court her, which Schouler grants. Trina agrees to marry him, and not long after, her lottery ticket brings her $5,000. Schouler complains that the prize ought to have been his, and the friendship suffers. The married couple stay in their small apartment, where Trina will not part with her money.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Greed (1924)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For Greed's Death Valley sequence, temperatures officially hit 123 F; of the forty-three cast and crew who worked there, one cook died of heatstroke and fourteen others became ill and were sent back to Los Angeles.
- Greed was originally over nine hours long, but was cut against Erich von Stroheim's wishes to about two-and-a-half hours; only twelve people saw the full-length 42-reel version, now lost, and some of them called it the greatest film ever made.
- The fight over Greed's editing led to a lengthy confrontation between Erich von Stroheim and MGM's Louis B. Mayer which, according to both men, ended with von Stroheim claiming all women were whores and Mayer punching him.
- When Greed opened in Berlin in May 1926, its premiere caused a riot at the theater that may have been instigated by members of the then-fledgling Nazi party.
- Trina was the hardest part to fill: ZaSu Pitts was hired at the last minute after Erich von Stroheim rejected both Claire Windsor and Colleen Moore, and the role was her first dramatic one after a career in comedy.
- Erich von Stroheim wanted a knife thrower to throw a real knife at Gibson Gowland's head for the bar confrontation between McTeague and Schouler, but Gowland refused the dangerous stunt and a special-effect shot was made instead.
SPOILER
Frank Norris's 1899 novel McTeague, which Greed adapts, was inspired by an October 1893 murder case in which a poor husband with a history of beating his wife stole her money and stabbed her to death at her San Francisco workplace.- Throughout the shoot, Erich von Stroheim brought musicians on set to create the right mood for his actors, hiring a harmonium and a violin player for the Death Valley scenes, with a theme inspired by Ruggero Leoncavallo played throughout production.
