I can't really say that I'm surprised this film was a 'commercial failure'.
I see many IMDb users extolling the improvement to be made by including stills to pad out the picture with previously excised material; I've heard that the existing shortened edition plays much better with the orchestral Carl Davis soundtrack. Not having benefited by either of these experiences, all I can say is that the version I witnessed was one of the most downbeat, heavily symbolist (and thus, ironically, despite all von Stroheim's efforts, least 'realistic') and melodramatic films I've seen to date, and most definitely not a potential crowd-pleaser. This has to be the original 'feel-bad movie'.
I seriously doubt that a further hour and a half, or seven hours, of footage in the same style would have made much difference. The film does indeed show signs of missing segments, but the only real way to avoid this problem would have been to adapt the story more concisely in the first place: in editing down any work, there is a limit to how much can be achieved without summarising and reworking. Beyond a certain point, in film as in written text, simply juxtaposing snipped sections in all their original detail isn't effective. If von Stroheim had set out to create a two-hour film in the first place, he would probably have done it differently.
He probably should have.
Whatever else you can say for the film, it isn't subtle. I had the sensation after a while of being bludgeoned over the head with the repeated 'miser shots' of Trina gloating over gold, or of disembodied hands grasping at loot: as if the idea weren't already driven home by the intertitles. The melodrama of McTeague, veins swelling, eyes whirling, being tempted by the helpless panting lips of the unconscious woman in the dentist's chair -- with its wordy interjection about 'the fine fabric' of his mother's influence being tainted by the deep-tooted evil of his father's apparently hereditary vileness -- is the sort of thing that belongs to film-making of an earlier period (if, indeed, anywhere), and gets silent films a bad name.
None of the characters seem very pleasant, and they all seem to be caricatures, fired only and arbitrarily by lust for money; it's possible that the editing loses large chunks of motivation here, for none of the abrupt transformations seem to make a lot of sense. The state of the McTeagues' marriage (in which Trina several times displays physical fear and revulsion at her husband's anticipated advances, and never seems to find him attractive) is highly opaque, save as an exercise in self-flagellation.
The final Death Valley sequence is admittedly powerful, but if that were really the aim of the movie it could have been achieved without the need for everything that went before to justify it. The man-hunt across the desert has become something of a Western cliché now, but was presumably original when this production came out; I'm afraid it did bring to mind the little 'flea-pit' cinema in "The Smallest Show on Earth", where the patrons were subjected to endless desert films with the heating turned up full in order to increase the sales of cold drinks during the intermission!
And yet again, it's unsubtle: the point is made when Marcus catches up to McTeague and there isn't enough water to get them both back out of the desert. Their lust for gold condemns them; film over. But "Greed" has to pile on death after death -- McTeague talks Marcus into shooting his (to all appearances) perfectly healthy mule, thus removing any possible means of escape, presumably in order to get him to empty his gun. Then one of the bullets just happens to pierce the water-skin: oh no! they're doubly dead. (Or, counting the mule, is it triply?) And then they fight to the death over who gets to carry the gold before he dies of thirst -- more heavy-handed message. And then Marcus's dead body ends up handcuffed to McTeague, thus making *quadruply* certain that he can't get out of the desert, what with his being 100 miles from water, minus transport, with an empty water-skin, and cuffed to a corpse he can't drag. (I was waiting for him to start hacking Marcus' hand off at the wrist, but apparently that was a step in realism too far even for von Stroheim.)
So what does he do? He sets his bird free (presumably the other one, symbolising the hated wife, vanished during one of the missing sections). Clearly he has been carrying food and water for this delicate creature and shading it from the sun all the time he was crawling across the desert, simply in order to bring it out for one last rhetorical flourish at this point. Only the bird refuses to leave him, and perches on the empty water-skin. More heavy meaning... The End. I don't like to say this of a notorious masterpiece, but it verges on the laughable.
Some of my problems with the film are, I'm sure, down to the tone of the original 'warts-and-all' novel. Some of them are probably caused by the editing (which, frankly, the director would appear to have brought upon himself). Some of them -- namely the exaggerated acting style, the self-conscious use of arty gold-y inserts -- can only be laid at the foot of the choices made for the motion picture, and aren't ever going to meet my taste. But the experience as a whole really doesn't lead me to seek out the 'restored' version, when I so totally fail to recognise in this version of "Greed" the tragically butchered but sublime artwork I had seen described...
I see many IMDb users extolling the improvement to be made by including stills to pad out the picture with previously excised material; I've heard that the existing shortened edition plays much better with the orchestral Carl Davis soundtrack. Not having benefited by either of these experiences, all I can say is that the version I witnessed was one of the most downbeat, heavily symbolist (and thus, ironically, despite all von Stroheim's efforts, least 'realistic') and melodramatic films I've seen to date, and most definitely not a potential crowd-pleaser. This has to be the original 'feel-bad movie'.
I seriously doubt that a further hour and a half, or seven hours, of footage in the same style would have made much difference. The film does indeed show signs of missing segments, but the only real way to avoid this problem would have been to adapt the story more concisely in the first place: in editing down any work, there is a limit to how much can be achieved without summarising and reworking. Beyond a certain point, in film as in written text, simply juxtaposing snipped sections in all their original detail isn't effective. If von Stroheim had set out to create a two-hour film in the first place, he would probably have done it differently.
He probably should have.
Whatever else you can say for the film, it isn't subtle. I had the sensation after a while of being bludgeoned over the head with the repeated 'miser shots' of Trina gloating over gold, or of disembodied hands grasping at loot: as if the idea weren't already driven home by the intertitles. The melodrama of McTeague, veins swelling, eyes whirling, being tempted by the helpless panting lips of the unconscious woman in the dentist's chair -- with its wordy interjection about 'the fine fabric' of his mother's influence being tainted by the deep-tooted evil of his father's apparently hereditary vileness -- is the sort of thing that belongs to film-making of an earlier period (if, indeed, anywhere), and gets silent films a bad name.
None of the characters seem very pleasant, and they all seem to be caricatures, fired only and arbitrarily by lust for money; it's possible that the editing loses large chunks of motivation here, for none of the abrupt transformations seem to make a lot of sense. The state of the McTeagues' marriage (in which Trina several times displays physical fear and revulsion at her husband's anticipated advances, and never seems to find him attractive) is highly opaque, save as an exercise in self-flagellation.
The final Death Valley sequence is admittedly powerful, but if that were really the aim of the movie it could have been achieved without the need for everything that went before to justify it. The man-hunt across the desert has become something of a Western cliché now, but was presumably original when this production came out; I'm afraid it did bring to mind the little 'flea-pit' cinema in "The Smallest Show on Earth", where the patrons were subjected to endless desert films with the heating turned up full in order to increase the sales of cold drinks during the intermission!
And yet again, it's unsubtle: the point is made when Marcus catches up to McTeague and there isn't enough water to get them both back out of the desert. Their lust for gold condemns them; film over. But "Greed" has to pile on death after death -- McTeague talks Marcus into shooting his (to all appearances) perfectly healthy mule, thus removing any possible means of escape, presumably in order to get him to empty his gun. Then one of the bullets just happens to pierce the water-skin: oh no! they're doubly dead. (Or, counting the mule, is it triply?) And then they fight to the death over who gets to carry the gold before he dies of thirst -- more heavy-handed message. And then Marcus's dead body ends up handcuffed to McTeague, thus making *quadruply* certain that he can't get out of the desert, what with his being 100 miles from water, minus transport, with an empty water-skin, and cuffed to a corpse he can't drag. (I was waiting for him to start hacking Marcus' hand off at the wrist, but apparently that was a step in realism too far even for von Stroheim.)
So what does he do? He sets his bird free (presumably the other one, symbolising the hated wife, vanished during one of the missing sections). Clearly he has been carrying food and water for this delicate creature and shading it from the sun all the time he was crawling across the desert, simply in order to bring it out for one last rhetorical flourish at this point. Only the bird refuses to leave him, and perches on the empty water-skin. More heavy meaning... The End. I don't like to say this of a notorious masterpiece, but it verges on the laughable.
Some of my problems with the film are, I'm sure, down to the tone of the original 'warts-and-all' novel. Some of them are probably caused by the editing (which, frankly, the director would appear to have brought upon himself). Some of them -- namely the exaggerated acting style, the self-conscious use of arty gold-y inserts -- can only be laid at the foot of the choices made for the motion picture, and aren't ever going to meet my taste. But the experience as a whole really doesn't lead me to seek out the 'restored' version, when I so totally fail to recognise in this version of "Greed" the tragically butchered but sublime artwork I had seen described...