THE CROWD

Classic Film:  THE CROWD – 1928

I found this gem by chance while scrolling through the cable channels at the 8:00 hour and landing on Turner Classic Movies.  I would consider this film a masterpiece. It puts us into a bustling New York City in the late 1920s.  Just before the Crash, we see throngs of busy, working New Yorkers in a growing, thriving environment.  The cinematography is brilliant, especially when we scale a skyscraper enter through a window, see hundreds of identical desks and narrow in on the protagonist.  He’s young, cocky and optimistic.  As a recent arrival to the city, he believes that he is very special, destined for greatness.  He was raised that way.  But he finds it’s not that easy and promotions elude him.  He chalks this up to bad luck and marries the first girl he dates, proposing to her on the subway on the ride back from Coney Island.  Earlier, at the start of the evening, he had pointed to a poor man dressed in costume and wearing a sandwich board.  He acts very superior.

Once married, they settle in a dilapidated railroad flat, one that features the elevated subway right outside their apartment.  The delirium of romantic love quickly fades and the bride’s family sizes him up as a loser.  He and his lady love are encountering difficulties and they are briefly buoyed by her pregnancy.  Hopes are dashed as his behavior becomes more and more erratic.  Still, he feels that he is destined to greatness and expects his ship to come in eventually.

Finally the man loses his job.  He has no prospects and eventually must take a job as a sandwich-board man.  He’s just a cog in the wheel, after all.