Stands Out in the Cinematic Crowd

"The Crowd" is practically a flawless masterpiece and a surprisingly depressing and realistic one from Classical Hollywood. It's one of the most affective films I've seen about grief. It seamlessly handles both big picture themes, as with the namesake "crowd" of New York, as well as corporate America and materialism, family and love, and failure both personal and of the American Dream, while it simultaneously focuses on the lives of one family started by the simply named John and Mary. It shows the passage of large amounts of time, jumping years and months between scenes, without missing a beat and manages to be quite rhythmic in its flow—no doubt aided by the modern orchestral score from Carl Davis. It does this with a focus on small details, such as the family meals and little mannerisms displayed by leads James Murray and Eleanor Boardman, as John and Mary respectively—not just the shifts in facial expressions displayed by the generous number of close-ups and medium shots, but also their body language, such as the way they both fidget or clench their hands nervously sometimes. Seeing their faces isn't even necessary; their body language tells the story.

Murray and Boardman are terrific, and surely credit also deserves to go to director King Vidor for coaxing these performances from two not-widely-known actors—Murray, especially, seems to have been a natural talent who received his big break here, but whose career and life sadly fizzled away shortly thereafter. His portrayal of grief, to make a recent comparison, is on par with that of Casey Affleck in "Manchester by the Sea" (2016) and is the more astounding because of Murray's character's transformation from happy-go-lucky to suicidal, and, yet, he manages, albeit, perhaps, naively, to maintain an at least outwardly hope for his family and career prospects.

Boardman's character's transformation from something of a passive girlfriend-then-wife to somewhat of the rock of the family—taking up sewing to make ends meet while John fails to hold down a job is equally affective, especially in the way that it creeps up on the spectator as the film transpires. Although "The Crowd" begins as John's movie—literally beginning with his birth and following him up to his first date with Mary, Boardman makes her an equal and sometimes main protagonist from the April scene thereout—especially the one-minute long take of Boardman as she portrays Mary's crisis of pregnancy and whether to leave John. It's an impressive testament to Boardman's acting that that stationary long take is one of the most memorable moments for me in a film as impressively photographed as this one.

Another way that "The Crowd" seamlessly covers its years of storyline and otherwise episodic scene structure is through reoccurring themes and visual motifs, and it helps that it features some of the best cinematography from the late silent era of Hollywood—one of the most visually splendid periods in film history. Doubtless, the standout here is the tracking shot of a model skyscraper and the through-the-window cut to a crane shot moving towards a close-up of John amongst the crowd of his fellow office workers. This shot is later reflected in the final shot of an outward-moving crane shot that loses John and Mary in a crowd of spectators.

There are quite a few of these thematic and visual motifs throughout, and I'm sure more repeat viewings could expose more to me. But, to list a few, there's, from the beginning, the birth of John, followed, later, by the birth of his own son. John as a child scaling a staircase, escaping the crowd, during his father's death, only to relive a similar moment, escaping the crowd through a staircase, with one of his children. John says upon arriving in New York that all he wants is an opportunity; he later sees a younger man, who spouts the same phrase, get a job over him. There's the juggling clown that he makes fun of on his first date with Mary—a job he later accepts for himself. And, of course, there are the many crowd scenes, whether on the streets, or the office, or the hospital.

Even the light moments early on are appreciated. I'm not sure I fully get the gag concerning other men making fun of John's washing habits (or the entire huge office bathroom situation where every office worker has the need to cleanup immediately at quitting time, for that matter), but it's bizarrely funny. The use of familiar New York landscapes, especially early on, also aid the pacing and historical interest—montages of the skyline and street scenes, Coney Island, Niagara Falls. Overall, because "The Crowd" is brilliant in its acting, narrative and visuals, it's a masterpiece. It must've been one of the most deserving films--one of the original 25 selections for the U.S. National Film Registry back in 1989--to not receive a professional DVD or Blu-ray release. Fortunately, there's streaming now, and it was released on VHS back in the day when I first saw it and has since aired occasionally on Turner Classic Movies. Along with titles such as "Flesh and the Devil," "Metropolis," "Napoleon," "Sunrise" (all 1927), "The Passion of Joan of Arc," "Shooting Stars" and "The Wind" (all 1928), G.W. Pabst's pictures with Louise Brooks and some of the best comedies from Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, to list a few highlights, "The Crowd" is one of the greatest examples of the pinnacle the art form reached at the end of the silent era.