---
title: "The Crowd"
year: 1928
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-crowd"
fi1m_id: "the-crowd"
imdb_id: "tt0018806"
tmdb_id: 3061
wikidata_id: "Q1304986"
fi1m_score: 90
critics_reviews: 3
published: "2026-09-25T00:04:25.167919+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-25T00:04:25.681458+00:00"
region: "BE"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# The Crowd (1928)

Directed by King Vidor · 1h 38m · Drama, Romance

## Identity

The Crowd

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-crowd
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** the-crowd
- **IMDb ID:** tt0018806
- **TMDB ID:** 3061
- **Wikidata ID:** Q1304986
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018806/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/3061, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1304986

**Fi1m score: 90** · Critics: 3 of 6 reviews so far

*In a sentence:* Born on the Fourth of July, promised greatness, handed a desk and a number

> King Vidor’s silent about an ordinary clerk, his wife and their small flat is as honest a film about an unremarkable life as the American studios have made. It drags a little at Coney Island, and then it does not let go.

## Synopsis

John Sims (James Murray) is born on 4 July 1900 in a small American town, and his father tells the neighbours the boy is going to be somebody. At twenty-one he arrives in New York, takes a clerk’s job at an insurance company and sits at one of rows of identical desks, known by a number rather than a name. His colleague Bert (Bert Roach) drags him on a double date to Coney Island with Jane (Estelle Clark) and Mary (Eleanor Boardman). Johnny and Mary marry within the year, honeymoon at Niagara Falls and set up in a cramped flat with a folding bed and a bathroom door that will not shut. Mary’s mother (Lucy Beaumont) and her brothers Jim (Daniel G. Tomlinson) and Dick (Dell Henderson) come for Christmas dinner, already unimpressed.

## Review

King Vidor’s *The Crowd* follows one man from the day he is born to about his thirtieth year and, at every point where a studio picture would normally arrange something remarkable, arranges nothing. John Sims is born on 4 July 1900 and his father promises the neighbours the boy will be somebody. He is not. He grows up, goes to New York, takes a desk and a wife, and the city goes on around him without looking up. It runs 98 minutes and we came out of it shaken.

Vidor and his co-writer John V.A. Weaver build the story out of things that happen to everybody: a job, a courtship, a wedding, a flat too small for the in-laws, a boss who does not know your name. What makes it a film rather than a list is how Vidor and cinematographer Henry Sharp look at them. The best known shot climbs the face of an office block, goes in through a window and travels along a floor of identical desks until it finds Johnny, one clerk among hundreds, sitting under a number. Sharp also took the camera into real New York streets, where passers-by behave like people rather than extras because nobody told them a film was being made. In the Sims flat he shoots tight and deep, so the folding bed, the sink and the bathroom door that will not shut are in nearly every frame.

James Murray was an extra when Vidor picked him out, and he plays Johnny as pleasant, funny and a little too pleased with himself, whistling and joking and telling Mary that things will change once his break comes. He is easy to like, and the film lets you like him for a long while before you notice you have stopped trusting him. Eleanor Boardman has the harder part and is quietly superb in it. She plays patience as work that costs something, so that when it runs out you can see how long she has been holding on. Bert Roach’s Bert, the friend who introduced them, is broad and cheerful and does rather well for himself, which Johnny never quite notices.

Hugh Wynn cuts the Coney Island courtship as a rush of rides and lights and faces, and it is the one stretch where we felt the film’s age. The Niagara honeymoon and a running joke about the bathroom door go on longer than they should. Variety’s 1927 notice called the picture dull and long; it was watching those minutes.

Then comes Christmas dinner. Mary’s mother (Lucy Beaumont) and her brothers Jim (Daniel G. Tomlinson) and Dick (Dell Henderson) sit in the little flat and say almost nothing while Johnny performs for them, and Vidor holds on their faces. We felt our own shoulders go up. Nothing happens in the scene except four people deciding what a fifth is worth, and Sharp gives them most of the frame.

The second half turns on something we will not describe. Vidor is more interested in the weeks after it than in the event itself, and the film’s finest stretch is about getting up, getting dressed and being told there are no vacancies. The final shot, which we will also not describe, moved us more than we thought a film this old could. It says with one camera movement what the whole picture has been saying.

Variety also complained that the leads never get a big scene. They do not, and that is on purpose: Vidor refuses Johnny the moment audiences had been trained to expect because life refused him one. The two other reviews we have read agree with us, and the consensus figure is dragged down by that single notice. After *The Big Parade* (1925) Vidor could have made anything, and he made this, with Irving Thalberg producing, about a clerk nobody would have cast as a hero.

It is a silent with no composer credited, so the music is whatever comes with the print you see, and a poor score can make Coney Island feel twice as long. If there is a chance to see it with live accompaniment, take it, and take someone with you. You will spend the walk home wondering what your own father told the neighbours.

*Fi1m score 90, published 25 September 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is The Crowd worth watching?**

*The Crowd* is worth watching for anyone with patience for a silent about an ordinary life, and we scored it 90. King Vidor follows a New York clerk and his wife through a job, a marriage and a cramped flat, and the Christmas dinner and final shot moved us more than we expected. Coney Island drags, and a poor musical score can make it drag longer.

**How long is The Crowd, and what is it rated?**

*The Crowd* runs 1h 38m. It is a drama and romance film.

**Where can I watch The Crowd in Belgium?**

*The Crowd* is not on any streaming or rental service in Belgium at the moment. It is available in 7 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How does The Crowd compare to Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans?**

*The Crowd* and [*Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans*](https://film.one/film/sunrise-a-song-of-two-humans) are both silent films about a marriage and a city, made a year apart, and both are worth your evening. Murnau's is the more intimate and the more beautifully shot; Vidor's is the plainer and, to us, the more honest about an unremarkable life. Choose *Sunrise* for tenderness, *The Crowd* for the harder look.

**What should I watch after The Crowd?**

After *The Crowd*, try [*Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans*](https://film.one/film/sunrise-a-song-of-two-humans) (1927, Fi1m 88): Murnau’s silent about a marriage and a city, made the same year, and just as moving. Then [*Bicycle Thieves*](https://film.one/film/bicycle-thieves) (1948, Fi1m 92): A father, a job, a city that does not care; Rome twenty years on from Vidor’s New York; and [*Tokyo Story*](https://film.one/film/tokyo-story) (1953, Fi1m 92): Ozu on parents, children and disappointment, told at the same unhurried, unsparing pace.

### Reviews we read (3)

- **Slant Magazine**, Fernando F. Croce (4/4): Croce regards the film as a powerful, emotionally rich work that unites individual struggle with the vastness of the crowd. He praises King Vidor’s expressive visual style and the performances’ vivid communication of ordinary human feeling. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-crowd/)
- **The New Yorker**, Oliver Claxton (95/100, inferred): Claxton gives the film an emphatically favorable verdict, calling it an important work of honest realism. He praises its probing camera work and the actors’ nuanced performances. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1928/03/03/go-to-see-the-crowd-and-there-is-no-maybe-to-that-advice-two-weeks)
- **Variety**, Variety Staff (15/100, inferred): The review is strongly negative, calling the film dull and excessively long. It complains that the story seems to say little and that the leads fail to deliver a major dramatic scene. [Read](https://variety.com/1927/film/reviews/the-crowd-1200410052/)

## Details

- **Director:** King Vidor
- **Director:** King Vidor
- **Screenplay:** King Vidor, John V.A. Weaver
- **Cinematography:** Henry Sharp
- **Editor:** Hugh Wynn
- **Producer:** Irving Thalberg
- **Cast:** Eleanor Boardman as Mary Sims; James Murray as John 'Johnny' Sims; Bert Roach as Bert; Estelle Clark as Jane; Daniel G. Tomlinson as Jim; Dell Henderson as Dick; Lucy Beaumont as Mary's Mother; Freddie Burke Frederick as John 'Junior' Sims
- **Runtime:** 1h 38m
- **First release (the US):** 18 February 1928
- **Genres:** Drama, Romance

## Where to watch in Belgium

Not streaming, renting or buying in Belgium at the last check.

Also available in: AU, CA, EC, MX, NZ, PA, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans* (1927), Fi1m 88: Murnau’s silent about a marriage and a city, made the same year, and just as moving — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/sunrise-a-song-of-two-humans.md)
- *Bicycle Thieves* (1948), Fi1m 92: A father, a job, a city that does not care; Rome twenty years on from Vidor’s New York — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/bicycle-thieves.md)
- *Tokyo Story* (1953), Fi1m 92: Ozu on parents, children and disappointment, told at the same unhurried, unsparing pace — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/tokyo-story.md)
- *The Apartment* (1960), Fi1m 91: Wilder’s insurance clerk at his desk among hundreds, thirty years later and no happier — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-apartment.md)
- *Playtime* (1967): Tati’s office floors and glass towers take Vidor’s crowd and make it a comedy

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-crowd