disinterested_spectator
In 1928, King Vidor made "The Crowd," a movie about John and Mary Sims, and then made "Our Daily Bread" in 1934, which is a movie about the same married couple. Different actors play the roles in the two movies, but even if they had been played by the same actors, the second movie really does not seem to be a sequel to the first, especially since the son they had in the first movie is inexplicably missing in the second."The Crowd" is basically about a man, John Sims, who thinks he will make it big in the big city. In fact, his father expresses those big dreams for him when he is born on July 4, 1900, as propitious a birth date as one could want. As a child, his life is compared, somewhat superficially, with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. At the age of twelve, he expresses his dream of being big himself. That is the day his father dies, suggesting that our dreams have a way of being interrupted by the harsh realities of life.An intertitle sarcastically announces that John has become an adult, and that he is one of the seven million people in New York who believes the city depends on them. That is a stretch, because a lot of people have no such illusions, but John certainly does. He ends up with a job in which he is just one of a thousand people. All in all, it is not a bad job: he works indoors, sitting down, no heavy lifting. He even has the opportunity to steal a little time from his boss trying to win a contest coming up with a good advertising slogan. And there is no overtime apparently, because at the moment the minute hand indicates it is 5 o'clock, everyone leaves his desk and heads for the exit.Bert works in the same office with John, and he lines him up with a blind double date, where John meets Mary. Though Bert is a fun-loving guy, yet he is a better worker than John and eventually gets promoted. Furthermore, Bert is not contemptuous of other people the way John is, sneering at the crowd and remarking to Mary that most people are a pain in the neck. John sees a man juggling balls with an advertisement on the clown suit he is wearing. He points out that the poor sap's father probably thought he would grow up to be president. Much in the way that Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power) is destined to become the geek in a sideshow in "Nightmare Alley" (1947), so too is John destined to become the juggler in the clown suit as punishment for his derisive remark.After kissing Mary a couple of times and seeing an advertisement ("You furnish the girl, and we'll furnish the home"), John asks Mary to marry him. They get married, but there is no home to furnish, only a small apartment with a Murphy bed, where John dreams about the big house he thinks they will eventually own. After a while, it all starts to get on their nerves, and they start quarreling, although John is the one who does most of the complaining and sniping. They almost split up, but then Mary tells John she is pregnant, and so they make up. They have a son and soon after that a daughter. And soon after that, they start quarreling again, with Mary growing weary of John's dreams about making it big while Bert actually got a promotion.While at the beach, John starts juggling balls to amuse his children, recalling the geek motif of the juggler in the clown suit. Nevertheless, John comes up with an advertising slogan based on juggling balls, and it wins him five hundred dollars (about seven thousand dollars, adjusted for inflation). After John buys some presents, they call their children through the window to come and get the toys he bought them. Heedlessly, the children run across the street, and their daughter is run over by a truck and killed.After a few months, John is still so upset that he cannot do his job. Even though Bert is now his supervisor and would probably be understanding, John quits before Bert can say anything, throwing a tantrum, flinging his ledger on the floor, and saying, "To hell with this job." Oddly enough, when he gets home, Mary is in a great mood as she prepares food for the company picnic. We have to wonder, if Mary has recovered well enough to think about having fun, why can't John at least go to work and do his job? In any event, John tries to get work elsewhere, but fails at one job after another, once again putting stress on the marriage. In some ways, this reminds us of "Penny Serenade" (1941) and "The Marrying Kind" (1952), two movies in which a marriage ends up on the rocks on account of the death of a child. Like those two movies, the idea is that a good marriage can ultimately survive such a tragedy.Mary tries to make ends meet by sewing dresses while John hangs around the house depressed. Her brothers come by and offer John a job, but he turns it down because it is a "charity job." John leaves and almost commits suicide by leaping in front of a train, but ends up finding work juggling balls in a clown suit. He goes home to find that Mary is leaving him to go live with her brothers. He talks her into going to a show with him, having purchased the tickets with the money he made, and at the theater having a good time, they see his advertisement of the clown juggling balls in the program, suggesting that he might succeed again in the future.
Michael_Elliott
Crowd, The (1928)**** (out of 4) Classic tale of dreams failing to come true certainly takes a honest look at its subject. The film tells the story of John Sims (James Murray), a man who feels that he has nothing but great things in his future. He marries a terrific woman (Eleanor Boardman) and to him this is just the start of his great life but soon he begins to realize that nothing is a given and he finds himself poor and in danger of losing his family. Even though silents were on their way out by the time this was released, I think this is just another film that proves you really don't need sound or color for something to reach its full power. This was one of those classic films that I had been wanting to see for many years and I'm certainly glad that I finally caught up with it because it certainly lived up to everything I had heard about it. A lot of the buzz for this film was for its technical merits and they are incredible but I thought the story itself was also very good and perhaps the main reason the films works so well. I think, for the most part, the movie takes a very honest look at ones dreams and how the majority of people are going to be letdown by them. I thought the film was very honest and depressing about how it looked at a man who kept expecting to have it all but finds himself losing at every possible turn. Vidor does a masterful job directing the film as he certainly puts all the right touches on the subject as the film goes through many feelings from happiness to sadness to downright depression but Vidor never misses a beat and really delivers a powerful message. I think most people will be able to feel for John because I'm sure everyone at some point has dreamed like he does. I'm sure many will also be able to connect with him when those dreams fall apart and reality hits. The story is a very tender one and it's told in a wonderful fashion except for the ending, which I found to be pretty poor and not going well with everything that led up to it. The performances by Murray and Boardman are extremely good with the two making it seem like they are a real couple. The two of them are very believable in their roles and there wasn't a second that I didn't believe they were these characters. The technical side of the film is also very impressive especially the opening sequences. The scenes of the boy walking up the long stairs was very haunting and the climb up the building was also quite chilling. Again, I don't think the ending worked very well but this is still an exceptional film that lives up to the reputation.
kidboots
Probably the best film ever made. When John Sims, as a child is sitting on a fence surrounded by friends talking about their dreams and lofty ambitions, he says "my dad says one day I'm going to be somebody big". It is this belief that great things are going to happen to him without him having to strive for success that may be John Sims downfall. He doesn't have the talent or ambition to lift himself out of the crowd, all he has are his dreams. Through the film, events indicate that John is going to make his mark on the world. The first scene shows people passing the Sim's house to celebrate the 4th of July - the title announces something even greater is taking place inside - the birth of John Sims. The father then predicts the world is going to hear from the "little man".A shabbily dressed stranger on a steamer warns John, now 21, "You got to be good in that town if you want to beat the crowd". There is an expressionistic feel as the camera pans up the skyscraper, zooms into a window and singles out John Sims at work, just one of many, sitting at his desk. At this stage he is planning to get ahead by studying at night. Then he meets Mary - on a bus ride he jeers at a man in a clown costume - "I bet his parents thought he would grow up to be President", little knowing that one day he would be forced to take a similar demeaning job.Slogans abound in this film. When you first meet John, he is working on a competition slogan. Seeing an ad in the train "You furnish the girl - We furnish the home" makes him think of proposing to Mary, and on the honeymoon trip "time to retire" hastens him to the bathroom, where some men pass him a copy of "What a Young Husband Ought to Know".He doesn't get on with his in-laws, they don't think he'll amount to much. He is always dreaming of making it big but it is all talk - at the beginning he is shown to be a clockwatcher.Five years pass - he now has a little boy and girl but his friend has been promoted while he is still stuck in the same rut with only an $8 a week raise. At a beach picnic, where only the children enjoy them- selves Mary calls his bluff and encourages him to send in one of his slogans. He does and wins $500 but their joy is short lived as their little girl is run over by a truck. John, who is suffering from depression, quits his job but Mary is still supportive. He finds he can't stick at anything, they move to a shanty and Mary is forced to take in sewing. After rejecting a job from Mary's brothers, they fight and John attempts suicide. He is stopped only by the cries of his child and through the love and belief of his little boy John is now determined to get a job and succeed.The strength of James Murray's acting is overpowering. King Vidor called Murray "one of the best natural actors I had ever had the good luck to encounter". What happened to him was so tragic, when you look at his performance in "The Crowd" - he was capable of real greatness. At the end Mary can't bring herself to leave John, she realises that he is dependent on her and with all his faults and failures she still loves him. Eleanor Boardman is magnificent as Mary. When you first see her she is a gum chewing, almost coarse girl but as the film progresses you see her through John's eyes and without any change in her appearance she becomes beautiful.Apparently the film caused a stir for being the first American film to show an indoor toilet!!!Highly, Highly Recommended.
