The Crowd
Release date 18th February 1928
Country : USA
Running time : 104 mins
Genre : Drama
Starring Eleanor Boardman, James Murray
Screenplay by King Vidor and John V.A.Weaver
Directed by King Vidor



  The life of an ordinary man in New York city. He is born, gets married, has children and struggles through life. Tragedy leads to a breakdown of his marriage and an uncertain future.

This is quite unusual among American silent films of the Twenties being a straightforward tale of ordinary people with no roses round the door ending. The ending isn't really positive or negative it allows the hero to dissolve into the crowd and brings the movie full circle. Early on a great tracking shot which starts outside a huge building reveals the hero John Sims sitting at his desk, one of many : an anonymous figure.

 

To play his everyman director King Vidor didn't want a star but chose an actor from the ranks of the extras James Murray.  As the leading lady he cast his wife Eleanor Boardman. This bleak film was also highly unusual for MGM the head of production Irving Thalberg though believed in Vidor's vision. The film actually made a modest profit though it wasn't as successful as Vidor's previous The Big Parade (1925).