The Crowd (1928)
Directed by King Vidor, 103 minutes, Black And White, Silent
Reviewed September 3rd, 2002
King Vidor's film "The Crowd" is a wonderful silent film from the very tail end of that era. This was the only year that this category was composed entirely of such entries and, as such, require a completely different set of views to judge them by. In silent films, obviously, the way lines are spoken do not matter at all. The only things that are important are the composition of the shots, their movement and the expressions of the actors and their body language. And, in this film, Vidor has successfully used these things to tell his story in a way that allows the story (incidentally, co-written by Vidor) to be told entirely without one word from the actors.
The story is of a John Sims and the opening of the film, naturally, celebrates the day of his birth--July 4th, 1900. And, already, we see Vidor's use of misdirective foreshadowing. The date and Sims' father give every indication that this young son will fulfill his intentions to "be somebody" and, as we flash forward twelve years, we see young Johnny looking just that ambitious. But, almost instantly, we see that ambition turn to disbelief and disillusionment as the father dies and Johnny ascends the stairs of his house in a wonderful lingering shot that leaves us feeling the same sense of isolation and detachment from the world that the now fatherless boy must be feeling. Nine years pass and we now see the adult John Sims and the first thing we see said to him, by a fellow passenger on his ferry to New York City, is "You've gotta be good in that town if you want to beat the crowd." And this is Vidor's real triumph. This incredible personification of the abstract idea of "the crowd" that slowly closes in and, finally, absorbs John Sims altogether. Vidor only uses a few lines, spread out across the entire movie, and a few images and you entirely understand the concept, it's power and how, in the end, it finally wins over entirely John Sims. But, for now, we see the same ambition as before. He's been told since birth that he's going to "be somebody" and he believes it. Unfortunately, he lets this belief stand for him as fact. He does not have the true capability to work to follow through with it. He starts out with lofty ideas and, at first, turns down a double date set up by his friend Bert because he needs to study. But, in the end, he gives in (shortly after four of his other friends give him four different variations on the same line about him washing up and John notes that they all talk alike--second shades of the crowd already surrounding him) and, within moments, he is already telling Bert how much this lifestyle suits him. He never again in the film mentions studying for anything. John's last vestige of true seperation from the crowd ends here as, on the elevator down from work, he is told to turn around and face the same way as the rest of the group. And, in turning, he effectively has started the process that will lead him down through the rest of the film. When he and Bert wait outside the building where their dates soon emerge from, we see identical looking beaus snatch up identical looking girls, one after another, as Bert and John get in line to do the same. As they get onto a bus to the fair, John actually comments on the crowd of people, all alike, and Bert and his date look confused about such an odd comment as they apparently believe this to be. But little does John know that, by now, any traces of his individuality are now slowly dwindling away.
Soon, John and Mary are married (after John proposes to her the night they meet, after seeing a poster advertising the kind of house a married couple could live in; indeed, this almost ridiculous idea of the instant courtship is not pure romanticism but, rather, what leads to the dischord in the coming marriage and serves it's almost unbelieveable status for this purpose) and on a train to their honeymoon in Niagara Falls. The train scenes are, of course, a bit of slapstick comic relief (John gets into the wrong berth on the sleeping car, almost lying down with an elderly bearded man), but also shows John caught with a book "What A Young Husband Ought To Know." Even with his own wife, John is still not a free thinker. But, once at Niagara Falls, John does take a few pictures and, here, we see more of Vidor's natural talent with the silent medium. Mary has to look reluctant and embarrassed at John's photographic interest in her and Vidor lets her express this without looking over the top with either of them or even very unnatural in it. In fact, he even foregoes subtitles for this part letting, instead, the actors do this part with their faces alone. Soon, of course, the titles return, as John tells Mary how much he loves her, we see sweeping shots of the falls and come in on married life on Christmas Eve. This is a wonderful exercise in contrast. Here, we see John dutifully closing up and putting away the fold-up bed without a thought. In fact, he has a certain rhythm in the whole exercise, making it almost a single, fluid motion. When we get to scenes in April, he is not only reluctant and even angry about doing it, he cannot do it. It takes him many tries to keep the bed up and to then turn it around and stow it away. On Christmas Eve, as he goes to take a quick shave, we see the bathroom door opening itself as he finishes up. Here, he does not notice it and, indeed, even uses it's opening to look out at one of the presents his wife has gotten. In April, he not only notices it, he blames it on Mary: "You've got this on the blink, too!" Continuing on the holiday evening, John first does a completely ineffective magic trick for his in-laws, then is indirectly berated by them as Mary's brothers relay John's news to their deaf mother and one of the brothers comments that John says he has prospects...again. After this, he is sent out for a liquor run and has to go to Bert's (keeping in mind, of course, that this was still during Prohibition). There, he finds Bert and two girls, one of which immediately attaches herself to John, flattering him with the word "some-account." This, naturally, strikes a chord with John, to whom this sort of compliment is almost a natural attraction for him and the once reluctant boy now holds the girl in earnest before he is finally taken home by Bert in the middle of the night where, in-laws now long gone, he talks to Mary. She tells him her family doesn't understand...but she does. John, in turn, opens a drawer and gives her Christmas presents. But, as we head into those April scenes, we are left with John becoming upset at her for opening an umbrella--one of her presents--in the house. John's abrasiveness towards her earlier was somewhat apparent. Soon, it will become obvious.
In April, as we see the same scene progress with what appear to be two entirely different characters, we actually find Mary at the point of leaving and John at the point where he would let her. By this point, John has actually become such an unbearable personality that one would most likely side with Mary to leave him to his own demise. But, when Mary tells John she is pregnant, John becomes even nicer to her than he was the night they met, only minutes after telling her that marriage isn't a word "it's a sentence." Before he leaves, the John who, moments ago, Mary said "could try the patience of a saint" is not only blowing kisses to her as he leaves but is coming back after he leaves to do it some more. In October, a son is born and John runs off to the hospital to see him (handing his work off to Bert, to whom he promises repayment when his ship comes in). Vidor manages a wonderful shot of the ward as John finally is allowed to enter it (being called in from a group of similarly-nervous fathers-to-be; even in his son's birth, whereas he was born in his parents' home, his son is born in a ward with many other people just like him) and see his child and we go through the door and keep with a continuous shot as John slowly, slowly, slowly walks towards Mary's bed. When he sees her, she delivers a wonderfully sarcastic "Poor boy....I'm sorry you suffered so," her face, thanks to Vidor, perfectly delivering the line for us, lest we perhaps think that it could've been written seriously. John now promises Mary, as he's been promising everyone--including himself more than anyone else--that he will succeed someday soon and their ship will come in. Unfortunately for Mary, he's not the only one who is convinced by this. But, for now, we think, perhaps, with more misdirection by Vidor, that perhaps this really is the ticket for the perennial dreamer John Sims as we hold on a shot of mother, father and child in, for now, total bliss.
Five years more down the line and we've caught up to the present-day. It's 1927 and the Sims family is vacationing on a beach...with hundreds of other families, supposedly taking a break from the hustle and bustle of city life. Mary, however, points out the fallacy in this assumption as she's left, as she tells John, doing all the things she does at home anyways. Furthermore, she's frustrated by the children's restlessness (Junior's petulant insistence for an apple) and John's total obliviousness to her plight (in a commotion, a kettle falls into the fire and extinguishes it. We see, first, Mary's total exasperation, followed by John, blankly playing the ukelele and delivering what the subtitle proclaims as "Hey! Your fire's out!" but with the face that properly expresses the real statement, "Hey, your fire's out.") When John tries to comfort her with more thoughts of his success (which, in the past five years, have amounted to an 8-dollar raise), she insults him and he tells her about his missed successes. She, in turn, having heard it many a time before, tells him to just get her some more wood for the fire. In doing so, John tries to prove himself "the old go-getting kid." Instead, he manages to burn his hand liting the fire. But, in an interesting twist of fate, shortly after this, John manages to come up with something. He's been working in an insurance company all these years (which, incidentally, features wonderful shots whenever we take a look over the floor or tracking John through a row [which happens after his daughter dies]) but he has a hobby of entering slogans into contests. And, as he's sitting there with his family, he comes up with one that, as we see, wins him 500 dollars (the subtitles, however, completely fed up with John, deadpan "Everybody wins a prize once in their lifetime....somehow.") Vidor shows us the pure elation of the family, opening now with a shot of Mary in a rocking-chair and a list in her hand as she adds a 50-dollar "New Dress" to total the list to 500 dollars even. John bursts through the door with goodies in hand, including a new scooter for Junior and a doll for their baby daughter. Actually, John looks perhaps even happier as he imagines Junior will be and he and Mary go to the window to call their children up to them in the highest point of the movie yet. And, as their children cross the street, their daughter is caught in the path of a truck that tries, unsuccessfully, to swerve and miss her. Vidor immediately kills the mood and we see John rush downstairs in a now palpable silence as he finds his daughter...in the middle of a large crowd. As he tries to take her home, they nearly grow to the point of blocking his way, but he makes it through. As a doctor watches over the girl, we begin one of Vidor's and the script's real triumphs. The actual understanding and appearance of "the crowd." As John watches over his little girl, he becomes aware of all sounds. Bert chewing on food. Mary's mother crying. He tells them both to be quiet and, of course, they agree with the grieving father. As he hears a news vendor outside, he beckons him from his window to be quiet. Fire engines roar down the street and he is nearly run over as he runs outside to try and silence them too. And then, as they pass him, a crowd of spectators follows them and Vidor makes it to look as John awash in a human tide pulling him the other way as he struggles to not only silence them, but to survive amidst them. After they all run past him, a policeman finally tells him that the world cannot be quiet because his daughter is sick. John goes to his home and finds his daughter dead. Mary and John are led into seperate rooms and, when Mary cries out for John, he is held back by friends and relatives there and not allowed to be with her as the scene ends.
As we reenter, we see John and Mary in a hearse, appearing just as they did in a Tunnel of Love at the fair of their first day together, but with an entirely different mood as they both lean against their side of the car. As John returns to work, we see a rather inventive use of double exposures or projection work as we see John's warring thoughts of numbers and his daughter, the truck and, finally, her tombstone. One of John's superiors complains that his mind is no longer on his work and takes John's latest accountings to his boss...Bert. John, fed up with the job (or, perhaps, that his friend succeeded so obviously where he did not), quits in rage. He does not tell Mary until the next day on the company's picnic, but she reassures him that there are plenty of jobs to be had. The title then reads "Mary was right. There are plenty of other jobs....and John found no trouble in landing his fourth in one week" as we see John door-to-door, delivering vacuum cleaners. When he comes home, he tells her he has quit ("I'm sick of selling vacuums." A hopeful look on Mary's face, "Oh, did you sell some?") and, when he explains that he can't sell them because everyone already has one, Mary, for the first time (for anyone), questions John's entire integrity. "Are you sure it's always everybody else....and not you?" And we fade out.
John can still not find a job and Mary has been reduced to becoming a dressmaker to make ends meet. We find John standing on the porch of a run-down building having, presumably, lost the old one, as his brothers-in-law arrive to tell Mary that they are giving John a job. John, of course, refuses their charity but, this time, Mary will not stand for it. She says she almost wishes he were dead. And, with that, he walks out, defeated; his son, Junior, chasing alongside him...as he walks to the trainyard. Vidor gives us a genuinely suspenceful scene as, after he first distracts Junior, John climbs over the side of the bridge as we see a train coming, about to pass below. John braces himself, holding on to the bridge as he leans forward and we cut to the train coming and are enveloped in the steam from the engine. We see it continue on for a while, not knowing John's fate as the cars come into view again. And we hold for what feels like a lifetime...until we cut to John, still holding on to the bridge. He climbs back over and Junior comes back up to him. But, whereas John may be at the end of his rope, Junior still has hope. And here, perhaps, we see the shades of the loss that John probably still feels for his father as Junior asks, plaintively, why his father doesn't play with him anymore. John, throughout the child's questions, remains totally silent and stoic until the boy says "I like you" (having asked before "Doesn't Momma like you?"). John looks down at him. Junior then says "When I grow up, I wanta be just like you." He picks the boy up. "You still love me? You still believe in me, boy?" "Sure I do, Pop!" And, with that, he embraces his son and vows to him that he will succeed. With the faith of his own child, can't he break through and succeed, finally, where he has failed so many times before? He goes to the city and sees an ad being put up for 100 men for work detail. But a crowd of people already are running and John is too late. He pleads with them, tells them of his wife and child. But most of the people in the crowd are just like him. Instead, we come around to something seen all the way back in the early moments of the film. As John and Mary rode the bus to the fair, just after John made his comment about the crowd, we saw them laughing at a man juggling in the street to attract attention to the sandwich board he was wearing. John joked, invoking his own father, that the juggler's father, too, probably thought that his son would be president someday. Now, a job offer comes up. Can somebody juggle balls to attract attention to a sign? And John is the only who can and we see him, soon after, in the street, exactly as the other man he laughed at only five years ago. But it's a job. John doesn't know it, but he's almost now exactly the crowd he once so despised, all saying the same things to him in the washroom, all going about their business all the same. Now, instead, he is elated to rush home and tell Mary the news of his job...that he'll be going back again tomorrow. But Mary is there with her brothers. And they go to wait in the car for her to say her goodbyes. They have her luggage with them. She's leaving him. But, as she does, she gets out there and tells her brothers that John depends on her. She has to make sure he will be alright. And so she returns to the run-down house and there is a long pause...and she tells John that he may visit their son whenever John is lonely. But John has one last thing to give her. He bought tickets to a show, he says, when he thought everything was going to be alright. Would Junior and her come with him to it? He presents her with a beautiful boutonierre. He plays an upbeat record. And soon, she's dancing with him, Junior is dancing outside and her two brothers throw her luggage back onto the porch as we go to the show that night. There, we see the happy family, probably together again for good (or, at least, into the foreseeable future). John and Mary laugh as, first, John pats the back of the man next to him as the man chokes and then shows the man the slogan he came up with, now in the theater bill. The man shakes John's hand and they all go back to watching the show. And, in the most brilliant moment of the film, we see John and Mary, close, laughing together at the show. It's a happy ending. And then we cut to a shot of them furthur away...with other couples laughing and rocking back and forth in their seats. And Vidor pulls back the shot, slowly, to reveal another row of people laughing and rocking back and forth in their seats...and another row...and another...and another. It is not a happy ending. John has now become what he was told he had to escape, the thing he once despised. The crowd. He does not laugh. The crowd laughs. As we see the entire theater, from the stage, laughing as one, we cut to a shot from directly above of them all laughing. We pull back...and fade out. The End.