[This particular shot paid homage to director King Vidor""s similar sea-of-desks image in the silent film classicThe Crowd (1928).The feature film was the first US studio-backed (20th Century Fox), big-budget sci-fi film sinceJust Imagine (1930).There, Magneto demonstrated how he could profoundly amplify his abilities with a test mutation machine that he had built.And this was screenwriter/producer James Hill""s first film as a full member of the newly-named HHL (Hecht-Hill-Lancaster) production company (formed in 1953) - but it became the company""s first major box-office failure.