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Film · MGM · 1928

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The Crowd

63Watch it awake.

He cannot stand being ordinary, and the city does not notice.

The review

The studios were nervous about this one, and I see why. A young clerk marries, has children, loses one, and cannot stand being ordinary. The city does not notice him. Silent. A house can watch it. The household is not a backdrop. A child dies. I won't linger. His work is one clerk's place among hundreds of the same. He is not rewarded for wanting to be special.

I know the itch that says a life doesn't count if nobody sees it. The film will not pay him for that itch. A marriage and the children are the life, loss included, and the crowd keeps moving. Put it on when you can stand a story that refuses a prize for being noticed. It isn't mean for sport. It is ordinary on purpose.

Journal

Keep The Crowd in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 63. Yours can differ.

The glance

Piety and Courage are the thin ones.

Can conscience actually stop someone, or is reverence only in the shot so it can be mocked?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

I Remember Mama

74 instead of 63

I Remember Mama is still a drama film, and it scores 74 instead of 63. What you gain is courage: Her courage is social and domestic: a hospital, a rich aunt, a daughter's pride.

The eight

8
Industry
A clerk's ordinary job is the work, one place among hundreds like it.
9
Household
He marries and has children, and the household is not a backdrop.
4
Piety
He cannot stand being ordinary, and no conscience makes peace with that.
3
Courage
Wanting to be special is not a risk taken for the wife or the children.
6
Republic
The city does not notice him, and the crowd is the town he lives in.
7
Temperance
The film refuses to reward the hunger to be seen as special.
8
Truth
He wants to be special, and the story will not pay that want with a prize.
5
Stewardship
Left standing is an ordinary life in a city that never looked at him.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · The Crowd · 63IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

Film · Prime Video · 2005

Pass it on

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

63Watch it awake.

The punishments are the old book. The factory is colder than the 1971 film. Read it that way.

The review

Charlie is still the child who has a family and almost nothing else, and the ticket is still a test the other children fail in public. Willy is stranger here, and the flashbacks make his oddness a wound rather than a mystery. That is a choice. It explains him. It also risks teaching that genius is a loneliness the world should indulge. The book did not ask for that much sympathy.

Watch it if the house already knows the story and can say which child is which. The gum, the television, the greed, the spoiled demanding: those four are the lesson, and they are still true. Do not come away wishing to live in the factory. Come away glad Charlie had a grandfather who would go with him and a family to bring the prize home to.