38. The Crowd

The Crowd
1928

Yay! King Vidor is back!  It is nice to see a familar face and I liked The Big Parade more than most of the other silent films we watched.  This was actually a pretty good movie, and if I am saying that a silent film is good then you know it is seeing how I have bitched about the majority of the silent movies so far.


This movie is about an ordinary guy named Sims and how he sets out to live in New York.  He then proceeds to live a fairly ordinary life (though it is marked with tragedy).  The point of the story is that we are all just faces in a crowd.


I really liked this film.  It was well-acted and Vidor did an excellent job with the camera (particularly when they were all going down the slide).  Some parts stretched on a bit long like when Sims threatened to leave his wife and the camera stayed on her for like four minutes.  Other than that, great film and one that made me think.


RATING: ***--


Interesting Facts:

This was the first American film that had a toilet in it.  Pretty racy!  Some people think it was the first movie ever to have a toilet but so many films have been lost that people can only guess.


Sorry I am so weird today.  For some reason, I had trouble writing this post.  Because, you know, I am usually so witty...


Again, no video.  You are going to have to buy this one from Amazon.  Look at how cool I am for putting a link up.  I am growing!

The actor, James Murray, drowned himself because he couldn't deal with the pressures of acting.