McTeague was made into a remarkable silent film by Erich Von Stroheim who said he had been attracted to Norris's novel because of the power with which it captured its time. Filmed over a nine month period ending in December of 1923 and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer exactly one year later with the title Greed, this movie starred Gibson Gowland as McTeague, Zasu Pitts as Trina, and Jean Hersholt as Marcus. The film had a difficult history. Von Stroheim's script followed the novel in almost every detail and, to assure a sense of authenticity, he systematically shot scenes in the locations described by Norris. The result of this exhaustive and scrupulous respect for the novel was a film that originally consisted of forty-two reels and ran for eight hours.

At the insistence of the producers, Von Stroheim reduced the film to an eighteen-reel version which he said was the minimum...