hello and crowds

[Alexander Jacoby]

Hello Patrick,
 
My immediate response is that crowd scenes are actually quite rare in pre-war films - I think this is because a lot of films of that date involve low-key family settings and are quite interior. Period films might be more likely to have crowds in but I'm less of a specialist in that genre?
How big does a group have to be to constitute a crowd? 
 
Tears Behind Victory (1931, Shigeyoshi Suzuki) ends with a rowing contest observed by cheering crowds, and throught the contest is mediated the reconciliation of the two feuding male protagonists. It is, by the way, a superb film and everyone ought to have seen it.
 
As I remember, Family Meeting/Kazoku Kaigi (1935, Yasujiro Shimazu) begins with rapidly edited shots of crowds in the Tokyo stock exchange. But I've only seen this once, unsubtitled, and so my notes of the time are rather inadequate.
 
If it's relevant in the sense of "people all doing the same thing at once", The Pot Worth a Million Ryo (1935, Sadao Yamanaka) has a climax where a substantial proportion of the population of Edo form a queue to offer their pots to the venal anti-hero who has advertised in the hope of tracking down a single, priceless pot.
 
Best,
 
ALEX


		
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