The Crowd

I recently watched this silent movie and I was amazed by its timelessness.

People work everyday on an eight-hour job and has dreams to make it "BIG". In that way, he could stand out of "The Crowd". Eighty years later and people still go through the same routine. Any working person can symphatize with John Sims.

In my humble opinion, the movie is a precursor of the neo-realist movies produced in Europe during the post-World War II era. The movie, in a way, also prophesied the worse: The Great Depression. John Sims, who symbolizes the common man, found it difficult landing a stable job after he quit his previous one.

A great movie, I hope this one must be watched by the viewers of today.

This has to be w/ out a doubt my favorite film of all time (althought Metropolis is a very close second). What King Vidor brought to the silver screen when he made this film was pure genius. Few films compare to this one. The Techniques used are way ahead of their time and reminiscent of few directors before him. Not even Griffith could obtain such amazing crowd footage as Vidor did. The story line is one that we can still relate to today, wanting to achieve our dreams but just falling short. Today it's called depression or something of the sort but then in an age of new development it was different. Not being able to achieve greatness wasn't uncommon but it felt that way. And the character in this film is no exception, I truly recommend this film to anyone who doesn't mind a good drama and to anyone who wants to see what life was like in the late 1920's.

Like most of the silent tragedies I've seen (and there haven't been many), "The Crowd" was hard to like. That didn't stop it from being a finely directed and acted drama. Like any film from any era that avoids the traps of trend-conscious filmmaking, "The Crowd" was built to last. When you make a movie with a good, solid story and inspire the cast to give brilliant performances, it's difficult to go wrong.

It's not a fun movie -- most of the time we're spent watching James Murray shoot himself in the foot, scene after scene. He's a really pathetic creature, but the director, King Vidor, portrays him and his story without passing judgment.

Worth the price of admission alone, Vidor's eye for detail in old New York City. In a justly famous montage and tracking shot near the beginning, he shows us Gotham so well, and in such great detail, that hardly a director since has been able to match him. His nomination of Best Director at the first Academy Awards was completely deserved (and his loss to Frank Borzage for the creaky "7th Heaven" was, arguably, the first of Oscar's major blunders.)

It's a bleak world view, that's for sure, but it keeps your attention and fills your eye.

Restored with a very nice score,"the crowd" hasn't aged a bit.The topic is as relevant today as it was in 1928.Do have a look at the first pictures of "the apartment" (1960) or the last ones of "working girl"(1988)and you'll know what I mean. John Sims tries to beat the crowd,this crowd that follows him everywhere,at work,in the streets,at the fair or on the beach.He doesn't even realize his condition :you should see him laughing at the people on the street,behaving like sheep.It's always someone else,his wife says,take a look at yourself.

The secondary characters are wonderfully depicted:the well-padded buddy,the mother and brothers-in-law always contemptuous,always putting John down.Lots of sequences are memorable,now comic,now tragic:the tiny flat where even the bed must be folded,the huge office where employees are doing the same job at the same time,where everybody acts alike when they leave their job,like some kind of ballet.

John Sims is the embodiment of the American dream,but it has an universal appeal.When he was born,his father promised he would have good prospects,he would become someone big.King Vidor does not show the relationship father/son cause the father disappears when John is still a boy,but we can easily imagine it.So Sims thought NY was depending on him,and he discovers that he will be a wash-out all his life.If it weren't for his little boy who still believes in him(Vittorio de Sica will remember it for his "bicycle thief",he would throw himself under a train.

The cinematography is prodigious;two examples : The father is dead, the boy is climbing a stair : stunning high angle shot,enhancing his awful pain. On the contrary,the skyscrapers are filmed from below,showing how lost a human being can feel in this steel and glass world .

A detail :the hysterical/historical joke at the fair will be used again by the Beatles themselves in their "magical mystery tour" home-made movie.

1928:the silent era was coming to an end but we had not heard the last of it.

This is easily on the best silent films that I have seen. I got caught up in the story right from the beginning. To a degree, this is a story of the great mass of people that make up "The Crowd." As is pointed out in the beginning, a story of a man who is indispensible to New York (as most think.) He isn't. He thinks he is better than those he works with and is constantly waiting for 'his ship' to come in (which doesn't). In the end he almost loses his wife because of that.

I really enjoyed the scene early in the movie when he and a friend are going to Coney Island with two girls and both stop to watch the girls go up stairs so they can look at their legs. Probably somewhat risque' in 1928.

The film really stands out for the editing. Especially when you remember that this was made in 1928. It is used to also give you excellent views of New York and life in 1928.

I will see this one again and again.