1927-28
(1st) Academy Awards, Unique & Artistic Picture* Nominee
The story of King Vidor’s silent film The Crowd sounds simple and familiar: the joys and tragedies of a
married couple as they struggle to get by in the modern world. However, a movie
like this, with such subject matter and of such quality, is a rare thing even
today. This film was a passion project for Vidor. Irving Thalberg, head of production
at MGM, believed that occasionally films should be made for prestige instead of
profit, and since Vidor had directed many hits for MGM, Thalberg greenlit The Crowd.
The Crowd is a
film in two parts. The first half is an optimistic romantic comedy. John Simms
grows up believing and telling everyone that he is destined for great things.
As a young adult, he moves to New York City. He has a job in a skyscraper and
meets Mary on a double date. They quickly fall in love and things are great,
for a while. We expect a bright future for John and Mary, just like they do; one
filled with happy times and easy to solve problems. The second half of the
movie is a heavy drama about married life. John and Mary are befallen by small
troubles like broken appliances, unfriendly in-laws, and a frustrating day at
the beach followed by larger troubles like a lost job, money problems, and a
painful tragedy. John’s daydreams and Mary’s pragmatism are an ill match for
each other and strain their marriage more and more.
When John arrived in New York harbor, a fellow traveler told
him, “You’ve got to be good in that town if you want to beat the crowd.” To our
main characters “the crowd” is every other faceless person in the city equally
uninterested and unhelpful in their lives and problems. The only help John can
hope to get is from himself, something he is painfully slow to realize. John is,
of course, as much a part of “the crowd” as he is apart from it; every average
person is the main character of their own life, unbeknownst to anyone else.
MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer thought The Crowd was depressing and “obscene” because of a scene that shows
a toilet as John tries to fix the tank. Mayer hated this film and urged fellow
Academy judges to vote against it. I cannot deny that The Crowd is a depressing film, but it is also an extraordinary
one. It is a film of major defeats and small victories. It is not a spoiler to
say that the film has a bittersweet ending. Not every problem is solved, but
the characters are happy and smiling. Seven different endings were shot for The Crowd. Louis B. Mayer wanted the
film to end at Christmas with John and Mary and their children living in a
mansion; an ending that would have been wildly out of place and too absurdly
positive to be meaningful. I cannot think of a more positive ending that still
remains true to the film than the one used. There are only a few other films I
can think of that feel as true to the simultaneously harsh and beautiful nature
of everyday life.
King Vidor received a well-deserved nomination for Best
Director, Dramatic Picture (there was also a Best Director, Comedy category). The Crowd is shot with such skill that
it is clear the filmmakers are not only masters of their craft but also
creative and inventive minds. In the most famous shot of the film, indeed one
of the most famous shots in cinema, the camera pans up a monolithic skyscraper then
dissolves to inside and glides over a sea of uniform and anonymous desks
aligned in perfect rows before finally pushing in on the desk of John Simms
#137. It is a truly beautiful piece of cinema and has been repeated in homage,
albeit on a smaller scale, in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960) and Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire (1996). There are number of other visually
interesting shots in The Crowd. On
John and Mary’s date at Coney Island we see them and their friends slide down a
big slide right towards the camera. The production design of the city is
impressive and captivating. It is plain and void of character, but seems vast, futuristic,
and imposing; it reminded me of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, also from 1927.
The Crowd is a rare
kind of film which is powerful and moving while also entertaining. It is loaded
with pathos and catharsis for audiences yesterday and today. The Crowd does all of this while being
artistic, inventive, and thematically challenging. The Crowd is unfortunately a hard film to track down. It was never
issued on DVD and is only available on VHS. However, there is hope for the
preservation of this movie. It was one of the first films selected for
preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. A
most wise choice.
Nominee: MGM
Producer: Irving Thalberg
Director: King Vidor
Screenplay: King Vidor & John V.A. Weaver
Cast: Eleanor Boardman, James Murray, Bert Roach
Release Date: February 18th, 1928
Total Nominations: 2, including Best Unique & Artistic
Picture
Other Nominations: Director, Dramatic Picture- King Vidor
*The 1st Academy Awards had two categories for Best Picture:
Unique & Artistic Picture and Outstanding Picture. The Outstanding Picture
category is widely considered to be the forerunner to Best Picture since the
Unique & Artistic Picture category was discontinued the following year.
Since at the time each category was thought of as equally the top award I have
included the Unique & Artistic Picture nominees as Best Picture nominees.
