Crowd, The (1928)

King Vidor's Bleak but Affecting Silent Classic About Desperate Lives in the Big City

King Vidor was never the most subtle of filmmakers, but his heavily Baroque style served him well over a very long career with emotionally overwrought though supremely entertaining films like 1937's Stella Dallas and 1949's The Fountainhead. This seminal 1928 silent classic reflects Vidor's passion for melodrama but within a realistically bleak social commentary of America in the years leading toward the Great Depression. Written by Vidor and John V.A. Weaver, the story has an episodic structure that chronicles the life of an Everyman appropriately named John, born on the 4th of July in 1900, who believes his destiny is to become a big financial success. The movie follows his life as he works in New York as one of hundreds of accounting drones in an office building falls in love and marries a girl he meets through a co-worker (named Mary, of course), ekes out a meager existence as they raise two children and hits hard times after tragedy befalls them.

That John and Mary's seemingly mundane lives can seem universally transcendent is a tribute to Vidor's filmmaking acumen. Thanks to Henry Sharp's remarkable camerawork, Vidor produces two of cinema's most impressive tracking shots - the first moving from street level up a skyscraper into a field of identical desks and zeroing in on John at #137, the second in a most expressionistic-looking maternity ward where John finds an exhausted Mary at the far end of the room and their baby is brought to them. Even though the angles and dimensions are exaggerated in these scenes, Vidor offsets this stylization with realistic scenes of the teeming anonymity of city life. The story of James Murray, an insecure extra Vidor picked out of obscurity to play John, lends a particular irony to the movie, as his tragic, alcohol-fueled life ended eight years later with a fall off a pier. It's a shame since he plays John with sincere gumption and wide-eyed enthusiasm. Vidor's wife, Eleanor Boardman, is affecting as the constantly put-upon Mary. Together they make a convincingly ordinary couple in this sharply rendered portrait of downward mobility and self-acceptance. December 3, 2007

A Face in the Crowd

I have seen "The Crowd" on various list of "best" movies so I took the opportunity to watch it last night. I came away very moved by what I had seen.

The greatness of "The Crowd" lies in the simplicity of its' focus. It tells us a story about a child born to a man who predicts a great future for his infant. We follow that young man, imbued by his father with a sense of destiny, as he seeks to discover his fotune and fame. A strange thing happens along his path to glory; our hero becomes just like us. Yet, instead of becoming a commonplace standard Hollywood fare, "The Crowd" draws us in as we begin to see ourselves on the screen. The brilliant depiction of day to day life brings to mind thoughts and actions we all experienced to a greater or lesser degree. We grow more and more deeply involved with the Sims family with special focus on Mrs. Sims and the kids. Indeed, it is the young son who turn everything around in three or four sentences that speak volumes and drive deep into our hearts. The ending is suggestive but we know that what we suspect WILL happen.

Early on in "The Crowd" our hero makes fun of all the "little people" who are all part of "the crowd". He, remember, is destined for greater things. In time we find ourselves drawn into that same crowd. I believe that this was the purpose of director King Vidor; to show us that "the crowd" that we start out disdaining consists of people just like ourselves. November 27, 2007

What an amazing experience

This is one of those films that just about everyone seems to love and praise as a classic, even if they might not ordinarily be fans of the genre or the people involved in it, and it's definitely one of the Top 10 films of the silent era. While it's not one of the great epic silents such as 'Ben-Hur' or 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,' it can be seen as an epic in its own way, the epic story of an individual's life.

John Sims is born on the Fourth of July in the first year of the 20th century, and his father, quite proud of his new son, is sure that he's going to grow up to be someone great. And throughout much of his life, John does believe that, even as life keeps handing him one rotten turn after another. He knows he's going to be someone, more than just another anonymous face in the crowd, that his big break really is just around the corner this time, that everything will start to go swimmingly before he knows it. While he's, on close analysis, not really a particularly likeable or ambitious character, that's part of the appeal of the story, and of his character. He's just like so many of us, starting out believing he would be something great, really make something of himself, automatically climb the ladder of success, and even when life hands him lemons, he keeps persisting in his belief that it's not going to be like this forever, that his whole life couldn't really be wasted and nothing more than squandered missed opportunities. After all, he's done well in school, gets a job at as good company, scores a wife lightning-fast (his seemingly first dating experience ends with an impulsive marriage proposal based on a subway advertisement for a house he catches sight of!), and despite some marital problems (many based on his in-laws' disapproval of him), establishes what he thinks is a good home life with two good kids. His big chance to make something of himself really does seem to him to be only a matter of time. His story is captivating and incredibly real to life, becoming even more so the further he sinks. It is a depressing story, but many times real life is depressing and has no real happy ending.

This film was made when the silent cinema was at its peak, such an evolution in comparison to some of the films from even five years earlier. This story would never have worked nearly so well had it been made as a talking picture. All of its power, beauty, emotions, pull, and nuances would have been lost. Among the great scenes and shots illustrating the power of silence to tell a story are the camera panning up the skyscraper, the shot of all of the desks in the huge office John works at, the scene on the train during John and Mary's first night together as a married couple (the fear and nervousness over how they're going to have to sleep in the same bed for the first time is portrayed incredibly realistically), twelve year old John at the top of the stairs upon learning his father has died, and the haunting final shot, truly one of the most memorable endings in all of cinema. It's difficult to understand why this, one of the greatest of all silents, has never been issued on DVD, while numerous lesser silents have been merited worthy of DVD treatment. November 24, 2007

A historic masterpiece

I'll keep this short, since I have not seen this film in 25 years, but I am buying it here today again.

I saw this in a film class at Indiana Univeristy. It was one of my absolute favorites. A few years later, I was blown away to read that it was silent... I had forgoten that fact! That, to me, says it all. September 22, 2006

Whats all the fuss?

I thought this would be a great first silent movie. Unfortunately, despite its excellent reviews, I didnt care for it.

Probably, my biggest complaint, ***MILD SPOILER COMING ***, is that the lead character is not very likable. He complains, blames, and treats his girly badly. So its not all that surprising that things dont go very well for him.

I would have much more liked to have seen a guy who, despite doing everything right, being good, and trying his hardest, comes up short... at least the viewer would have some sympathy for him. Or maybe, a guy who does everything right except for one time, and thats the time his world gets crushed.

Its not a bad movie, but just because its old, doesnt make it a 'classic'.

August 17, 2005

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