Production Photographs from "Greed," Erich von Stroheim Production Adapted from Frank Norris' "McTeague," Produced for Goldwyn Film Corp. (February to October, 1923)

Processed by Chris McDonald.

The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

Berkeley, California 94720-6000

1996

Production Photographs from "Greed," Erich von Stroheim Production Adapted from Frank Norris' "McTeague," Produced for Goldwyn Film Corp. (February to October, 1923)

BANC PIC 1993.034 -- fALB

The Bancroft Library

University of California

Berkeley, California 1996

Finding aid and digital representations of archival materials funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Processed and encoded by:

California Heritage Digital Image Access Project staff in The Bancroft Library and The Library's Electronic Text Unit

Digital images processed by:

The Library Photographic Service

Finding aid completed:

December 1996

Collection Summary

Collection Title: Production Photographs from "Greed," Erich von Stroheim Production Adapted from Frank Norris' "McTeague," Produced for Goldwyn Film Corp.

Date: (February to October, 1923)

Collection Number: BANC PIC 1993.034 -- fALB

Extent: 46 photographic prints, black and white, various sizes; compiled in album, 36 x 31 cm. 47 digital objects

Photographer: Jean Hersholt

Repository: The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley.

Berkeley, California 94720-6000

Languages Represented: English

Information for Researchers

Access

Collection stored off-site. Advance notice required for use.

Publication Rights

Copyright has not been assigned to The Bancroft Library. All requests for permission to publish photographs must be submitted in writing to the Curator of Pictorial Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Bancroft Library as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

Copyright restrictions also apply to digital representations of the original materials. Use of digital files is restricted to research and educational purposes.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item] Production Photographs from "Greed," Erich von Stroheim Production Adapted from Frank Norris' "McTeague," Produced for Goldwyn Film Corp. (February to October, 1923) , BANC PIC 1993.034 --fALB, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Digital Representations Available

Digital representations of selected original pictorial materials are available in the list of materials below. Digital image files were prepared from selected Library originals by the Library Photographic Service. Library originals were copied onto 35mm color transparency film; the film was scanned and transferred to Kodak Photo CD (by Custom Process); and the Photo CD files were color-corrected and saved in JFIF (JPEG) format for use as viewing files.

Administrative Information

Acquisition Information

The Production Photographs from "Greed" album was transferred from the book collection in 1993.

Biography

Jean Hersholt was born July 12, 1886 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Both of his parents were famous Danish stage players, and Jean himself performed in many theatrical productions throughout Scandinavia before coming to the United States in 1914. Hersholt's first film appearance was the following year, and by the 1920s he had become a leading character actor of the silent screen. Because of his foreign accent, his career suffered somewhat after the advent of the sound era, though he continued to act in Hollywood until the time of his death. Hersholt was perhaps best known for his depiction of the Dr. Paul Christian character of both radio and film. In addition to his acting career, Hersholt was often recognized for his humanitarian achievements. He was awarded two Academy Awards, in 1939 and 1949, for his distinguished service to the motion picture industry. Hersholt founded and was president of the Motion Picture Relief Fund, and also served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1956, the year of his death, the Academy established the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, an Oscar awarded annually to film personalities for their humanitarian efforts.

Jean Hersholt appeared in nearly one hundred films, among them Greed (released 1924), Alias the Deacon (1927), 13 Washington Square (1928), The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), The Crime of the Century (1933), Mark of the Vampire (1935), Break of Hearts (1935), The Country Doctor (1936), Reunion (1936), Sins of Man (1936), Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), and Five of a Kind (1938). Hersholt was also a translator and collector of the work of Hans Christian Andersen.

Scope and Content

The Production Photographs from "Greed" album contains 46 black and white photographic prints taken in 1923 during the production of the film Greed. The album consists primarily of production stills taken by Warren Lynch, a Hollywood still photographer of the 1920s and later a cinematographer and special effects expert. Affixed to the inside front cover of the album is the bookplate of Jean Hersholt, who may have also compiled the album. The order in which the photographs are arranged generally follows the order of events in the story of the film. Meticulously adapted from Frank Norris' 1899 novel McTeague: A Story of San Francisco, Greed was filmed on location in the San Francisco and Death Valley areas of California. Many of the album's photographs picture such location sets as San Francisco's Polk, Bush, and Sutter Streets, the Cliff House and Seal Rocks; Oakland's B Street train station; and various locales in Death Valley. In addition to studio and location stills, the album also includes cast portraits, a group portrait of the entire production company, a title page with cast credits, and three photographic reproductions of portrait sketches by Jean Hersholt.

Among those individuals pictured in the album are the director Erich von Stroheim and principal cast members Jean Hersholt, Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Chester Conklin, and Sylvia Ashton.

Most of the photographs include a classification number and/or the label "Goldwyn Pictures." Some prints include the names of the characters pictured and the page number of what is presumably the shooting script referring to the scene pictured. Beneath many of the prints are manuscript captions, presumably written by Hersholt, which include the correspondent dialogue or narrative information and page number references.

Container Listing

:1 Production Photographs from "Greed." [Production information, including cast listing.]