Millions of Us (1935)

Millions of Us (1935) is an early example of American labor-left filmmaking that experiments with enacted forms, anticipating Frontier Films’s renowned People of the Cumberland (1938) and Native Land (1942). Produced surreptitiously in Hollywood in 1934-5, the film dramatizes the plight of millions of unemployed workers amidst the Depression. This message is filtered through the story of a single “forgotten man” who walks the streets in desperate search of a job. Driven by hunger, he contemplates becoming a scab. A union man intervenes, coaching him to recognize common interests with his brethren. He is ultimately converted to the cause of trade unionism.