The Crowd

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The Crowd, a 1928 film by King Vidor.  It is bleak and sad.  Vidor used unknown actors, with a studio extra playing the lead.  That is James Murray in the center.


James Murray, 1901-1936.  Appeared in some 36 movies.  Was offered a seven year contract with Warners but drank himself out of work and marriage.  In 1936 Vidor set out to find him to offer him the lead role in Our Daily Bread.


King Wallis Vidor. A Texan from Galveston, he survived the worst natural disaster to ever hit the United States.  Now best known for directing this scene in the Wizard of Oz:


 He also directed the riveting war movie, The Big Parade.


 John Gilbert, The Big Parade.

Anyway, Vidor finds Murray panhandling and buys him a drink, offering him the lead in Our Daily Bread if he will get his act together.  Murray tells him to go fuck himself and splits.  Two years later he is down by the New York docks telling people he is an actor waiting for the crew to arrive and manages to fall off a wharf and drown.


James Murray.
 
Self destruction with a vengeance.



The Crowd, 1928.  First appearance of a toilet in an American film.  


William Desmond Taylor.
 
Victim of a spectacular unsolved Hollywood murder.  In 1967 King Vidor started his own investigation and figured out what happened.  The cops probably did too but were very much under the thumb of the studios.  Vidor was a hell of a smart man. 


Fuckin' shame.
 
 

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