The Crowd is a 1928 American silent drama film[2] directed by King Vidor and starring James Murray, Eleanor Boardman and Bert Roach.

[3] Kevin Brownlow and David Gill restored The Crowd in 1981, and it was released with a score by Carl Davis.

A Christmas Eve dinner in their tiny apartment with Mary's mother and two brothers, with whom John is not on friendly terms, ends badly.

Mary's brothers reluctantly offer him a position, but John is too proud to accept what he deems a "charity job".

John gets work as a sandwich board carrier and returns home, his optimism renewed, only to find Mary about to leave with her brothers.

Vidor avoided casting big-name stars in the film to attain greater authenticity; Murray had started as a studio extra, and had appeared in featured roles already,[1] but had made his way to California riding boxcars and doing odd jobs such as shoveling coal and washing dishes.

Vidor's great financial success at MGM in the 1920s allowed him to sell the unusual scenario to production head Irving Thalberg as an experimental film.

[1] At the studio's insistence, seven alternate upbeat endings were filmed, according to Vidor's autobiography, and previewed in small towns.

Mordaunt Hall, a reviewer for The New York Times in 1928, called it "substantial and worthy" and "a powerful analysis of a young couple's struggle for existence in this city";[9] but the trade publication Variety disagreed and described the film as "a drab actionless story of ungodly length and apparently telling nothing.

Due to the limitations imposed by early sound-filming techniques, The Crowd's innovations in camera movement would not be equaled for another decade.

He also provided an insightful interview on the making of the film in a segment of the British documentary series Hollywood (1980).

Nominations Composer Carl Davis created an orchestral score for the film in 1981, and it was released on video in conjunction with MGM and British television Thames Silents series in the late 1980s.

The Crowd was released on VHS as part of the MGM Silent Classics series in the 1980s, with a new score by Carl Davis.