A complete microcosm of city life in which an ordinary man comes to an ordinary big city full of dreams and quickly discovers its brutalities and impersonal heartlessness. He is swallowed up by and becomes - one of the crowd.
“An astonishing picture to come out of Hollywood at this time, when the studios were dedicated firmly to the dreams of the Coolidge era: Here was the reverse of the coin.... King Vidor dispensed with conventional plot, conventional happy or tragic end, conventional stars. Harry Sharp's camerawork is equally astonishing even today.”