Standing out… The Crowd (1928) with Stephen Horne, BFI

 

"When John was twenty-one, he became one of the seven million that believe New York depends on them.”

In her introduction, the BFI’s Bryony Dixon pondered why this special film, undoubtedly a mainstay of the American cinematic canon, is not screened more often and, indeed, the last time I saw it was in Pordenone back in 2017 with the late Carl Davis conducting his own score and the orchestra at the Teatro Verdi. This aside, the film is not available on home media and hasn’t been restored in some time despite director King Vidor’s Big Parade being on Blu-ray and in crisp condition, a great film but not of the same standard.

The Crowd undoubtedly breaks a number of golden rules for Hollywood and indeed, as Bryony pointed out, a full seven different endings were filmed and tested reflecting MGM’s concerns about the more realistic style deployed and their audience proved them wrong by preferring Vidor’s take. Vidor’s wife, the glamourous and divinely elegant Eleanor Boardman, threw herself into the project with one of the most selfless performances of the twenties; hair tangled, dowdy-clothed and make-up free all along way from the glittering gowns of Proud Flesh. She’s far from proud here subjugating her star-status to play the long-suffering but steadfast lower-middle class wife and thereby enabling her surprise leading man to excel.

James Murray was far from Boardman’s level and had been pulled from the ranks of the extras after being spotted by Vidor. According to Bryony, Murray at first didn’t believe Vidor’s offer, he thought it was a joke and didn’t turn up for his audition and, when he finally saw it was a genuine offer, requested the director covered his bus fare… Perhaps there was something of The Crowd’s John Sims about Murray, it’s hardly fair to suggest he was playing himself and Murray, certainly nearer failure than success at this point, acts his heart out in the film a good-looking guy with natural charisma and yet who might not have that extra drive and/or skill to really stand out from the crowd.

In a packed NFT3 we saw how Vidor used these assets to maximum affect in a film that is as universal as it is timeless and with a style and subject matter far from the dreamy magic realism of studio films now as then. Hollywood hates standing apart from the crowd whether its remaking, filming yet more people in capes or turning cartoons into live action.

As Eleanor Boardman put it: “The Crowd was to be the first picture without glamour…” Vidor simply wanted to tell the tale of an ordinary man: one of the crowd, as he faces the challenges of daily life without supernatural heroics or an excess of good fortune.

The film was to be a prosaic The March of Life, a title John Gilbert suggested when discussing Vidor’s desire to follow up The Big Parade with a Big Parade of Peace. The project would undergo many changes in title but it was always going to be a very personal one for King Vidor as he had the chance to make the film he wanted in the wake of TBP’s massive success... Irving Thalberg happy to let him experiment so long as it helped him forget that 20% stake he’d had in the former film.

“I made pictures as a good employee and pictures that came out if my insides. This is one that came out of my guts. There was a lot of hypocrisy in early films and I wanted to get away from it.” King Vidor explained to Jordan R Young in 1978. Whilst casting Boardman to play against type, the director looked for an unknown so the film would present a “documentary flavour” with “…. a young, good-looking man who looks like he really might be a clerk…” No chance for John Gilbert then. Murray proved to be inspired casting with any technical limitations simply under-pinning his character’s self-deceptions as he moves forwards gradually after every devastating reversal.

 

As if to reinforce the everyman theme the film begins on 4th July in 1900 with the birth of “…a little man the world is going to hear from all right…” Father has high hopes and everything is indeed possible. Flick on to 1912 as John (an uncredited Johnny Downs) sits with the other kids asking each other what they’re going to do when they grow up. “My Dad says I’m goin’ to be somebody big!” he says but – at the same time - Father dies – and there’s a terrific shot of young John climbing the stairs to realise he has gone… the first major defeat in the march of life reinforced by expressionistic forced perspective.

James Murray

“You’ve gotta be good in that town if you want to beat the crowd.”

The years pass and John goes to find his fortune in New York City. Hi arrival is followed by superb camera work from Henry Sharp showing the press in the city: thousands of people flowing along sidewalks, mingling with the traffic at cross-roads in a double exposure showing the lifeblood of the concrete and commerce. The camera angles on tall buildings, shifting to a model shot as it rises ever higher pulling back to focus on a window through which it fades into a giant room of endless regularity: desks into infinity.

Somewhere near the middle sits our John: one of the many in at desk 137, he scratches his head, seemingly intent on his work but he’s trying to think of an answer to a newspaper quiz: “Name our new motor fuel and win one hundred dollars” … a dreamer passing time and hoping for a long shot… He clock-watches and preens himself for real life to begin after five o’clock.

He plans to study but Pal Bert (Bert Roach) has an offer he can’t refuse “I’ve got a pair of wrens dated up for Coney Island. Want to make it a four-some?” All the while there are people filling the streets and corridors… the Metropolis is teeming. Bert and John run from out of the shadowy crowd to greet their wrens: Mary and Joan (Estelle Clark). Joan is bouncy and Mary is a little shy – Boardman almost dowdy, gauche, chewing gun and head bowed – an Oscar performance, in my book, for 1928.

Boardman herself, was always such a sharp commentator and recognised the value of this work saying later that Mary Sims was simply “a job I had to do, I didn’t like to be so drab and unattractive, the hair hanging down, no makeup on…. I had confidence in Vidor; I knew he knew what he was doing…” and no doubt vice versa.

Eleanor Boardman

Bert and John both catch admiring glances at the girls’ legs as they climb the steps on a double-decker tram but whilst the former is pantomime leery, the latter has a deeper feeling: this girl is offering more than just a glimpse of stocking. The couples sit at the front of the bus as they drive down the avenue and the thousand calculations and connections of early courtship are made. “Look at that crowd! The poor boobs…  all in the same rut!” says John to a shocked Mary and then he sees a men dressed as a clown advertising for shoes… a “poor sap” whose father probably wanted him to be president. You just know that’s going to come home to bite.

Onto Coney Island where the light-hearted tone is maintained – this is how life can be as we play and romance – survival put to one side. The Crowd plays with both concepts equally well and, the mood is superbly balanced by Vidor, despite his apparently relaxed approach to the performers he controls their context and he casts for character: Murray was a natural whereas Boardman could truly act.

 

John proposes on their ride home and we switch to the wedding where Bert gives them “a year or two” … Funny scenes on the honeymoon train as the couple ready themselves for their first night and then some stunning shots from Niagara Falls where James pledges his love will never stop for the most beautiful girl in the world.

Back to life and “home sweet home” where good humour enables them to rise above the compromises of location and affordability… But the cracks are there: Mary’s family Mother (Lucy Beaumont) and brothers Jim (Daniel G Tomlinson) and Dick (Dell Henderson) are less than impressed with her husband’s ability to provide. John doesn’t even have any hooch left for Christmas and heads off to Bert’s for a bottle only to be caught up in a party as his weak will crumbles at the mixture of girls and gin…

 

The cracks begin to show...

We begin to lose confidence in John as his career drifts and he falls into a routine of careless marital bickering: he dreams while Mary cleans … and cooks and washes. Their arguing intensifies - she must carry the blame for his failure to progress with every culinary accident counting against her. But as he storms out, she calls down from the window: there’s something she hasn’t told him… Family life moves them onward but five years later they’re still in their assigned roles on the beach. As with Junior (Freddie Burke Frederick) and their daughter (Alice Mildred Puter) run in the sand, John plays a ukulele as Mary cooks… doing exactly what she’d normally be doing at home.

It was at this point that my daughter elbowed me and gave me a look… in fairness I had been thinking the same thought!

The couple’s luck changes twice in the space of a few minutes: John finally wins a caption competition and a life-changing $500. He returns home laden with presents yet the most unbearable tragedy is about to happen, one which completely changes the tone of the film – we’ve been lulled into a false sense of insecurity by Vidor and now we pay as John and Mary’s lives unwind.

“Except for The Crowd, I really am not proud of anything I did.” said Eleanor Boardman to film historian William Drew and you can see why as she pulls Mary through every emotional gear in the closing segments in a magnificent display of technique and conviction. Murray also excels as misery piles on misery and he loses direction almost to the point of self-oblivion. Out of pace with the crowd he’s on his uppers losing job after job and deluding himself that a new “break” is only around the corner… he’s as real a man as Hollywood gets.

Murray and Boardman aged up for one of ten alternative endings... 

Vidor’s brilliance is in not giving the audience an easy way out and we’re left wishing and hoping long after the end title card pops up, a film that leaves a mark and one you don’t simply walk away from.

All of which makes it frustrating that, in addition to being rarely screened, this major film is not available on home media although the 1981 restored version from Brownlow and Gill, featuring Carl Davis’ lovely orchestral score has been shown on TCM in the past. We have Wings, Sunrise and The Big Parade on Blu-ray; come on MGM or whoever you are these days.

Stephen Horne played a few of Carl’s lines in tribute to the late composer and filled the room with sympathetic lines that soon merged with the action on screen. I wonder how the quality of story, direction and performance impacts the improvisation, certainly with a film at this level if feels as if Stephen raises his game to the same level, duetting seamlessly with Vidor, Boardman and Murray.

One of the screenings of the year and a reminder of the power of the BFI archive and it’s role in our cinematic lives. Not just the usual crowd…

 

Reading list:

 

King Vidor’s The Crowd, The Making of a Silent Classic by Jordan R Young is a fascinating account of the film featuring interviews with Boardman and Vidor as well as an introduction from Kevin Brownlow. It’s available from Amazon in paper and on Kindle.

 

King Vidor, American by Raymond Durgnat and Scott Simmon is a high-content, well-researched biography from the early nineties and still to be found on Amazon too.