King Vidor's film The Crowd (1928) and John Ford's film The Grapes of Wrath (1939) were made in different eras a decade apart. The first is a silent film made during the later years of that form of filmmaking, and the second was produced in the post-Depression era of America when the effects of the Depression were still felt. The films each use strong imagery and filmic techniques to tell their respective stories and also to enhance their thematic content, in both cases a critique of the social scene of their eras. The Crowd appears to be a deceptively simple story which is all the more powerful for the way it hides its manipulation of technique, and the film appeals to audiences primarily on the strength of its characterizations and its human problems. The Grapes of Wrath is a more panoramic view of a period in American history that focuses on one family as a representation of an entire class, and the film is affecting both for its human characters and for the photographic power with which their story is presented.
The film industry was just that--an industry--by the early 1920s, and the methods of production and distribution were set by the end of that decade. At the same time, while audience growth had been considerable, the studios sought new ways of attracting audiences, making use of the new two-strip technicolor process for special movies, and trying to develop a method of synchronizing sound and picture leading to a new era in filmmaking. By the time The Crowd was released, sound had been synchronized with film in the Jazz Singer (1927). The industry was thus in turmoil as to the nature of movies in the future, the need for sound, the costs associated with transforming an industry dedicated to the silent film into an industry producing sound films, and the ability of silent actors to succeed or fail in the new reality of sound. The Crowd can thus be seen as an example of the highest development in silent film, and K...