The Crash

I love how Ruth Chatterton continued to play leading roles into her forties, at a time when actresses started playing character roles in their thirties.

Here she stars with husband George Brent in "The Crash" from 1932, and that crash is Wall Street 1929. Chatterton plays Linda Gault and Brent is her husband Geoffrey. They're used to the best of everything, particularly Linda, who grew up poor and is determined never to be poor again.

Geoffrey depends on Linda to find out things about the stock market by sleeping with financial men. Of course this is referred to in the film as "your charms."

Geoffrey gets a little nervous about the market and needs to find out whether to pull out of the market or stay in, so he sends Linda to an older financier, John Fair (Henry Kolker), who is crazy about her, to find out the truth of the situation.

Linda is sick of whoring around so she tells her husband that John told her everything is fine. The staff hears her and go on an investment binge, as does John. Then the market crashes. Geoffrey goes broke. Linda begs him to allow her to go away for a while to Bermuda just until things settle down. I guess she just wanted to be out of the fray.

Geoffrey comes up with a letter of credit for $5000 to enable her to leave. Once there, she meets an Australian sheep rancher, Ronnie Sanderson (Paul Cavanagh) who falls in love with her and wants to marry her.

Chatterton gives a wonderful performance -- somehow, we like her and understand her despite the fact that she's obvious in what she wants. Brent, Cavanagh, and Kolker give her excellent support.

This film that comes off like a stage play, though it's actually based on a novel. The dialogue is quite stilted.

Before the Depression, the upper class was the subject of plays and books, and films since many of them were adapted from plays. The class system was apparent, and everyone spoke in those mock British accents. That all changed beginning in the early '30s, and the working man took over with plays by Odets and his ilk. So this film is really an interesting artifact.

Ruth Chatterton is always worth seeing, so I recommend this; also, it's interesting from a historical viewpoint.

I just watched this film and I loved it! I thought it was fascinating and funny, with great acting and dialog. The interpersonal relationships and social constructs are great fun to watch. I was with the story the whole length of the movie.

" We're not gentlemen' we're businessmen"

Lots of great lines. It's an interesting part of history as to what was going on right after the stock market crash of 1929. In this story there are people pointing the finger at who ever gave them the bad stock tip, then trying to get money from them. There's a lof about money itself that I think is unusual in an old movie.

This is pre-Code (the Maid's behind is prominently smacked) and pre-Welles/Hitchcock. So this can be described as 'reaching' more than authentically cinematic - but that's its central value: the striving, of the characters within the story, and the striving of Dieterle to tell the story visually.

At under one hour, there's no time for sentiment - there's barely time to fit in the subplot about rescuing the fiancée with the stolen jewelry - so at all levels it has to stay emotionally tough and rigid, and fully class conscious, which must have grated audiences at a time when so many were forcibly 'equalized' by mass unemployment. What grates today, in our PC world, is the servile treatment of the underclasses, and when spoiled people are ruined, they actually go to work(!) instead of spending half of the movie whining. Today, this would be about catharsis and self-pity...there was no room for such indulgences back then.

Many themes from this have been retranslated to such modern examples as "Wall Street". This is the pre-Code, pre-Brando, pre-New Cinema version of a chick flick, where women are treated as expensive objects, but women reciprocate by trading in wealthy men like so many bellwether stocks.

Only an 8 because of its length, probably 9 for short films. OK, short film, short comments.

I uttered several "wow's" in reaction to the dialog. If ever a film were straight, this one is. The viewer doesn't have to sit on the edge of his seat waiting for what the character's ought to say -- they say it.

"The Crash" could be favorably compared to the best of Maupassant's writing. The story is succinct and populated with unpretentious characters who make this film into what could be called concentrated story.

Chatterton is flawless and George Brent is so deliberately unassuming we end up liking him even as we condemn his lust for money. In fact, there are no bad guys at all. Actually no good ones, either. Nothing flat here.

Finally, in line with Maupassant's style, see if you don't think another title would be more appropriate -- "The Tip."

Crash, The (1932)

** (out of 4)

Decent if nothing overly special melodrama from First National has Ruth Chatterton playing a woman who seduces men so that she can give their stock tips to her husband (George Brent) who then makes them money. When the stock market crashes in 1929, the two lose everything so the wife decides to try out other men who might keep her away from poverty. This drama features way too much sugar but there are a few good performances that make it worth watching. I think the film, running a brief 58-minutes, does a good job at telling a simple moral story but I think the overall message is just a tad bit too simple and in the end you can't help but think you're being fed a bunch of sugar without any real meat to back up anything you're watching or being told to believe. The pre-code elements of the husband pretty much pimping his wife out for tips is an interesting angle and there's some more darker tones that help keep this film going. The main reason to watch this film is for the performance of Chatterton who really gives it her all and delivers a full and deep character. Whenever Chatterton talks about her fears of being poor, you can't help but feel for her and understand why she is so scared of going back into the streets. Brent is also good as her husband and Paul Cavanagh offers up good support. Fans of Chatterton will certainly want to give this one a try but the final film will leave most scratching their heads as to why it was even made. At just 58-minutes, the thing is incredibly short and one will wonder why it didn't contain more.