Gibson Gowland often played rough, imposing men; in Greed, he makes one of them painfully human. We value him for keeping McTeague recognisable when the film gives us plenty of reasons to recoil.
Fi1m perspective
Gibson Gowland makes the slow-thinking, physically powerful dentist in Greed (1924) difficult to dismiss. John McTeague becomes hard to like, but Gowland gives him enough human weight that we keep watching rather than simply waiting for him to behave badly. We rate the performance highly because it makes the character's resentment recognisable without asking us to excuse him. Erich von Stroheim can be overbearing in his judgement of these people; Gowland leaves us something to think about for ourselves.
Stroheim had already cast him as Silent Sepp, the mountain guide in Blind Husbands (1919), before giving him his only leading role in Greed. Elsewhere, he was frequently cast as rough or physically imposing supporting characters. He played Simon Buquet in The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and an uncredited angry driver in F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927). The sound years brought mostly small, uncredited parts.
The company matters. Zasu Pitts's Trina and Jean Hersholt's Marcus have resentments that feel personal, and their work is as important as Gowland's to the film's success. We found the jealousy in Greed oppressive because all three make it feel uncomfortably close to ordinary dissatisfaction. Understanding the feelings while recoiling from the people having them is a large part of the discomfort. Gowland is central to that effect, but treating the film as his alone would miss what the other actors contribute.
There are limits to what the cast can repair. The surviving Greed has awkward joins, and Stroheim sometimes insists on a point the performances have already made. Gowland's imposing presence suits McTeague, but casting a large man would not by itself have kept the character from becoming a simple villain. His smaller parts cannot tell us what a succession of leading roles might have revealed, and there is no need to invent that career for him. See Greed for the difficult, substantial performance he did have the chance to give.
Biography
Gibson Gowland (1877–1951) was an English film actor. He was born in Spennymoor, County Durham, England, and came to the United States via Canada around 1913. He worked initially as a bit player in Hollywood after meeting and marrying actress Beatrice Bird.
His only starring role was as dentist John McTeague in Erich von Stroheim’s Greed (1924), adapted from Frank Norris’s novel and co-starring ZaSu Pitts. Von Stroheim also directed him in Blind Husbands (1919). He appeared as Simon Buquet in The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and took numerous uncredited bit parts in films through the 1940s, including Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), The Wolf Man (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942) and Gaslight (1944). He had a son, actor and photographer Peter Gowland.
