Film Forum

U.S., 1928
Directed by King Vidor
With Eleanor Boardman, James Murray
Approx. 98 min.

“You gotta be good to beat that crowd.” James Murray and Eleanor Boardman (real-life wife of the director) marry after a thrill-packed date at Coney, then weather kids, job loss, and marital troubles, in Vidor’s landmark paean to “real people”—the most celebrated silent drama of NYC.

Reviews

“King Vidor’s 1928 classic, with James Murray as the ‘average man’ picked out of the crowd by Vidor’s gliding camera. In his autobiography, Vidor claims he sold the project to Irving Thalberg as a sequel to his hit war film, THE BIG PARADE: ‘Life is like a battle, isn’t it?’ Accordingly, the misfortunes that befall Murray are hardly average, but the melodramatic elements are integral to Vidor’s vision of individual struggle. The camera style owes something to Murnau, but the sense of space—the vast environments that define and attack his protagonists—is Vidor’s own.”  
– Dave Kehr, The Chicago Reader

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