From C-V News [Filming Greed in Death Valley]

Not from the newsreel. Erich von Stroheim: Greed (1924). The finale in Death Valley. Photo: IMDb.

From C-V News [Filming Greed in Death Valley] (1923). The violinist and the pianist in Death Valley.

From C-V NEWS [Filming GREED in Death Valley] (Vanderbilt Newspapers, Inc., US, 1923). Director unknown. 35 mm, 4 min (16 fps). Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
    English intertitles.
    Grand piano: Phil Carli.
    Viewed at Teatro Zancanaro, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM): Treasures from the American Archives, 10 Oct 2004.   

Scott Simmon (GCM): "The second piece is a tantalizing glimpse of a legendary moment in location filmmaking—Erich von Stroheim’s shooting of Greed in Death Valley—documented in a brief segment from the now-forgotten newsreel series C-V News. In addition to national newsreels, American movie programs in the twenties often included local stories reported by regionally distributed newsreels, such as CV-News. Known only through a few surviving fragments, it appears to have been a short-lived Southern California newsreel from the Vanderbilt tabloid newspaper chain."

"To recreate the final pages of Frank Norris’s McTeague with complete realism, Stroheim chose to shoot in Death Valley during the blinding heat of mid-summer. The men on horseback shown packing equipment also played the posse that trail McTeague after he murders his wife. The most revealing shots follow the intertitle “Countless hardships met with good grace by the company of thirty nine men and one lone woman over a period of thirty seven days.” Stroheim, wearing long white headgear, can be just glimpsed from behind, gesticulating as he walks backward in front of the camera car. Next to him is the “one lone woman,” Eve Bessette, his longtime script clerk. Photographed on horseback is Jean Hersholt as Marcus, who pursues McTeague, played by Gibson Gowland, who is seen (after a jump cut) leading his mule. This footage reveals another fascinating detail. Music was performed regularly on locations in the 1920s to help actors find the right moods, but who would have expected to see a violin and piano duo in the Death Valley summer?" – Scott Simmon (GCM)