The Crash (1932) User Reviews

dated but as always Ruth Chatterton is wonderful

[blanche-2 · 6/10 · 30 June 2015]

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.

Talk about Pre-Code! And, it's like watching a slow-motion train wreck!!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 9 November 2010]

Wow, is this a strange film. The Gaults are a crazy and disturbing couple. The wife (Ruth Chatterton) craves excitement and goes from one meaningless affair to another--caring very little for the men she beds. As for the husband (George Brent--in a VERY atypical role), he is just fine with all her infidelities--provided she exploit these relationships to get him stock tips! As a result, they are rather rich and, in their own sick way, happy. However, when the Stock Market Crash occurs in 1929, their world is turned upside down and they are now faced with living within their means for a change! As for Ruth, she continues with her whoring--and lets men take care of her in a manner to which she's grown very accustomed. As for the marriage, it is over in all but name and she is out sleeping around in fashionable places while he is back home--trying to rebuild his fortune. Occasionally, and for reasons unknown, she occasionally gets one of her lovers to send the hubby some money! As I said...pretty disturbing! Eventually this weird relationship, however, appears ready to end as Ruth is tiring of this arrangement AND she's met a man who she's actually fallen for! And, uncharacteristically, Ruth decides to finally do something she never thought she'd do....get a job and pay her own way! Yet, as the audience watches, they can't help but think that despite all this, she and Brent might just stay married after all as despite everything there is some sort of super-creepy connection that binds them (what this is, I have no idea). What happens next you'll have to see for yourself.

In many ways, this film is entertaining. Mostly it's because the plot is so wicked and the couple so bizarre that you can't stop watching! In addition, the film is so unusual (even for Pre-Code films) that it keeps you guessing! It's not great...but well acted and interesting despite its warped finale. What a sick little film!! As for Ruth Chatterton, such amoral roles were pretty typical for her and seeing her playing such a vacuous vixen worked. But George Brent, on the other hand, usually played very self-reliant and proud men--nothing like the sinister cuckold he plays here. Once the stronger Production Code was enacted starting in mid-1934, however, such roles were rare for Chatterton and Brent played significantly more manly roles. Promiscuity and amorality of the sort in this film simply wasn't allowed due to the restrictive and more family-friendly Code--so Chatterton's career slowly fizzled.

It also is interesting that Chatterton and Brent married shortly before this film debuted. Their marriage, like the one in the film, wasn't a strong one and only lasted about two years.

When the World Came Crashing Down!!

[kidboots · 7/10 · 13 May 2011]

Ruth Chatterton was constantly given material that was unworthy of her but most people knew her true worth. James Agate once said "as an actress Miss Chatterton seems to knock Garbo silly" and in 1931 readers of "Movie Fan" voted her "Finest Actress on the Screen". 1931 hadn't been her finest hour with more flops than hits, however that didn't stop Warners from signing her to a 2 year contract at the astronomical sum of $750,000. Her first movie was good - "The Rich Are Always With Us" with George Brent, who soon became her 2nd husband and to capitalize on the romance Warners starred them in "The Crash".

Occasionally, you get movies, like this one, where you have to look at the supporting players to find anyone remotely sympathetic (I am thinking of Ginger Rogers in "Upperworld"). Linda and Geoffrey Gault are like that (unlikable I mean). Geoffrey Gault (George Brent) will do anything to retain his wealth - he knows he cannot keep his wife as a poor man. They loved each other once - now he is more than happy for Linda (Ruth Chatterton) to use her charms on influential men, to put stock tips his way. When an old school friend, Martha (Lois Wilson) visits Linda, she is desperate for money as her husband hasn't worked for 5 months. Linda gives her money but the very sight of Martha brings back memories of the small town poverty she has spent all her life trying to forget.

When Geoffrey asks Linda to be "nice" to Jack Fair (Henry Kolker) to find out the state of the market, he doesn't realise that Linda has just broken off an affair with him. Of course Jack won't give her any tips, but to keep Geoffrey happy, Linda tells him the market is in great shape - big mistake!!! The next day, October 29th, the world comes crashing down. Linda flees to Bermuda because she can't stand the "sordidness" of being poor in New York and when Geoffrey cables her to tell her they are officially ruined and it's now "every man for himself", she begins a flirtation with Ronnie (Paul Cavanagh) an Australian sheep man. He falls very much in love with her but is Linda only playing with him? Who knows and who really cares about these people?

A sub-plot involves Linda's maid, Celeste (Barbara Leonard - now she had an interesting private life!!) and Arthur (Hardie Albright - big things were once expected of him). Celeste gives Arthur Linda's "hot tip" - he loses everything, steals from his boss and ends up in prison. Celeste then steals Linda's pearls, the only thing that is keeping the wolf from the door. That is the turning point of the film as Linda then realises she must get a job.

A little story about Barbara Leonard - in 1935 she was beaten and robbed at her home and the next week newspapers ran a picture of the angry actress, armed with guns, daring the thugs to return!!!

Recommended.

Fascinating glimpse of stock-market greed in the 30s

[Sleepy-17 · 13 March 2002]

"Frank" drama about a woman who needs lots of expensive things, or she "just can't stand it". Much better than its reputation, this flick has a good script and good acting from Chatterton, Brent, and great acting by Henry Kolker as an elderly lover. But it's primarily interesting because of its depiction of stock-market worship, and its relationship to whoredom. Short (58 minutes) but classy; another good one from director Dieterle ("Hunchback of ND").

Losing a fortune

[jotix100 · 7/10 · 20 September 2006]

Hollywood in the years before the Code produced pictures that were frank in the way they tackled a subject. Even though these movies did not have today's explicitness, the film makers had a freedom that was to come to an end in a few years. William Dieterle's wonderful film "The Crash", which was shown on TCM recently, is one film where a good story is told in fifty-eight minutes.

This film, which came out a few years after the 1929 Wall Street crash, deals with the way it affected people that had a lot invested and their descent in status as their fortunes were wiped out. Linda Gault, an ambitious woman, makes no bone in telling Geoff, her husband she needs money in order not to be bored. The new situation the real crash presented for Linda, makes a good character study of a woman of leisure and her world after they have to face a new reality they are really not prepared for.

The great Ruth Catterton plays Linda with conviction. We enjoyed the young George Brent, who is seen as Geoff Gault in the film. Henry Kolker and Barbara Leonard make excellent contributions to make this film work.

A film worth catching any time it's shown on TCM, a channel that has to be congratulated for its wonderful scheduling in resurrecting all these forgotten classics of the American cinema. The film also shows a good director, William Dieterle, at his best.

In this case, pride cometh before a crash

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 11 October 2010]

This is one of four movies that Ruth Chatterton and her husband George Brent made together at Warner Brothers, and I'd have to say that in spite of the fact that none of the main characters had remotely admirable qualities I enjoyed the film. Plus I make allowances that its roughly one hour running time is not long enough for much character development.

Here George Brent and Ruth Chatterton play wealthy couple Geoffrey and Linda Gault. Geoffrey Gault is hardly John Galt, for if he shrugged all that would be disturbed is some air. Geoffrey makes his money by allowing his lovely wife to seduce knowledgeable men of finance and extract stock tips from them. He then plays the market with these tips and accumulates more and more wealth. However, showing that there's maybe a spark of character left in him, he is still jealous. As there are signs that there are problems in the market building up to the stock market crash, Geoffrey instructs Linda to get one final tip from a man she's recently broken off her relationship with - wealthy industrialist John Fair. Fair tells Linda he doesn't give something for nothing, since he is still somewhat bitter about their break up. When Geoffrey questions Linda later in the evening and she says she got nothing out of Fair, Geoffrey says, somewhat self-satisfied, that her charms had to slip some day. Linda's pride is hurt by this, and she lies saying that Fair did tell her that the tremors in the market mean nothing and that everything will continue to go up. Not only does Geoffrey invest based on this fabrication, so does Linda's maid and all of her other servants. The results are ... well, I'll let you watch and see how this all plays out. Let me just say it all came across as rather lacking in a firm resolution.

It's always a pleasure to see Ruth Chatterton in anything, as she makes even a shallow woman like Linda Gault seem complex, and in some ways she really is. I'd recommend this one to anybody who likes the early talking Warner Brothers films or precode films, although this film is more stark commentary on the reversal of fortunes of the early 30's than it is precode.

It wasn't just the market that crashed....it was pretentious lifestyles as well.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 17 September 2014]

The amoral lifestyles lead by married couple Ruth Chatterton and George Brent underwent drastic changes simply because she lied about getting false information from a wealthy admirer (Henry Kolker) in regards to the conditions of the stock market just right before it crashed. She's been leading this gentleman on, making him think she wanted just more than stock tips from him, so when this happens, it isn't just the two of them who loose money, but their entire staff as well. Chatterton heads off to Europe for a much needed rest (why care about breadlines and pesky landlords demanding rent) where she meets a wealthy Australian (Paul Cavanagh) who makes her put Brent on the sidelines. It all concludes with Brent committing bribery (which he insists is a loan) and Chatterton torn between Brent and Cavanaugh as she plans for an uncertain future.

You've never seen so many selfish people in polite society, and while everybody is oh, so polite, they are also oh, so selfish, especially Chatterton. She keeps repeating throughout the film how she saw her mother grow old through poverty and how she refused to allow that to happen to her. But getting past poverty doesn't mean living in an art deco world, and Chatterton's character is obviously nothing more than a high-class hooker and mega gold-digger. Yet, when she is forced to model furs for a living, she is content with how life has turned out, and even shows sympathy to her French maid (Barbara Leonard) stealing from Chatterton after her boyfriend (Hardie Albright) is imprisoned for embezzlement.

While Brent and Chatterton give good performances, their characters are unappealing and unsympathetic, even with excellent manners. It is obvious that they are simply out for themselves, so why should the audience even root for these characters? As far as being a representation of what life after the crash was like, this touched maybe one percent of the population, and probably even they found this to be false. The fact that this came from the very gritty Warner Brothers makes this element more head shaking. More truth was told in "Gold Diggers of 1933" than this soufflé of the haves fighting hard to avoid become the have nots.

Ambitious

[jldmp1 · 6/10 · 20 September 2006]

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.

Stagy But Good

[Handlinghandel · 5/10 · 27 September 2006]

Ruth Chatterton is always worth watching. She is very good here. As a temptress, she's not terribly convincing. This was only a few years before she played the heartbreaking Fran Dodsworth. That character thinks she is a man-trap but she's well past her prime.

She seems to be surrounded by actors who are also not in the blush of young.

Georrge Brent, in an early role, is very appealing as her husband. He has a drinking problem. But he loves her.

The title does refer to the stock market. Everyone here is concerned about money.

It isn't a movie for the ages. But Chatterton was a performer for the ages.

Crash Landing

[sol1218 · 7/10 · 31 October 2009]

***SPOILERS*** It's not that wealthy socialite Linda Gult, Ruth Chatterton, is a bad person it's just that she likes the life of luxury that she's been living of late and want's to keep it that way at all costs.

Getting in good with big time financial and stock market maven Jack Flair, Henry Kolker, has Linda get tips on the market that has her stock broker husband Geoffery, George Brent, make a number of killings on. It's now October 1929 and rumors are flying that the market is in for a major move but the question is: Is it up or is it down? Only someone like Jack Flair could know the answer and he ain't talking!

Geoffery wanting to get the jump to where the market is going has his charming and beautiful-as well as greedy-wife Linda try to get Fair to advise her on what to do in buying or not buying stocks in the near future and gets nowhere with him. Trying not to let down her husband in him knowing her failed attempt to pry any information out off Fair Linda makes up the story that he told her that times couldn't be better and to bet the house on a future major bull market that's just about to take off! Well as history showed us the stock market went kaput on October 29, 1929 and never came back to where it was until the advent of WWII some ten years later!

Wiped out financially and deeply in debt Geoffery has nothing to offer his high living on the hog wife Linda but just his love and a $5,000.00 letter of credit that will make it possible for her to ship of to Bermuda until the storm, the Great Depression, blows over. As things turn out the credit, or $5,000.00, runs out before things in the market can turn around! In fact they get much much worse with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting an all time low on July 8 1932, from its high of 381 back Sept.3 1929, of 41 points! A shocking loss of 89.2% in value!

With poor Goeffery facing the bread line for food on a local Hooverville for shelter Linda instead meets and fall in love with big time Australian sheep herder, or better yet his millions, Ronnie Sanderson, Paul Cavanagh, while vacationing in sunny Bermuda. The news that his loving wife Linda is leaving him for Ronnie, or his big bucks, has the by now destitute, he's about to be evicted from his luxury E 26th street apartment in the ritzy East Chelsea district of Manhattan, Geoffery try to go to Jack Fair and plead for him to bail him out with a loan so he can keep both his wife and dignity. Geoffery also holds Fair responsible for the mess he finds himself in for giving Linda the wrong information about the coming market crash! It's when Geoffery finds out that Linda made the whole thing, that the market is on its way up, he realizes that it's her not Fair that actually did him in!

***SPOILERS*** Heart warming ending with Linda leaving Ronnie whom she was about to elope, to Liverpool England, with and stay with her dirt poor husband Geoffery for the duration of the market turn-down. In the end Linda felt so guilty in what she did to Geoffery that she even tore to pieces a $25,000.00 note of credit that Fair, in an act of charity, gave to both her and Geoffery just to prove to Geoffery that it's love not money that that made her decide to stay with him!

Everyone knew what that meant

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 13 June 2016]

It's a sign of the times that now people have to think first as to what the title meant seeing this film now. But back in 1932 if you used the phrase The Crash as a movie title everyone knew what that meant.

The then husband and wife team of George Brent and Ruth Chatterton star in this feature. It's a melodrama about desperate people facing poverty because of the Stock Market. We saw some of this same mentality in the Reagan 80s.

Chatterton is a woman who is scared of poverty and will do anything to stay out of it. Her less than admirable husband essentially pimps her out to people like Henry Kolker for stock market tips. That less than admirable husband is George Brent whom the thought of getting a job is the farthest thing from his mind.

Paul Cavanaugh plays an Australian sheep rancher who also sparks some interest in Chatterton. My problem with The Crash is that these are people that sparked no empathy with me. Chatterton and Brent do their best, but this film is terribly dated today.

A moral tale?

[didierfort · 8/10 · 23 August 2009]

I just catch this movie on "France 3", French TV-channel whose "ciné club" is alive and well, giving us gems to watch, promising even more.

What a good surprise of a film. The cinematic value is not little. Dieterle knows the angles. Photography is excellent. The music score is not overwhelming but useful, giving each place and situation their own sonic mood. (By the way, the copy broadcast was in very good state of preservation.)

The rhythm is good, the film being quite fast paced. Dialogs are simple, sometimes witty, more often cynical though it's quite difficult to know whether it's "vulgar cynicism" or "moral cynicism". I'm inclined to lean to the latter, since the end is quite moralistic.

The actors - I must confess they were all unknown to me - are excellent. All of them, in my opinion. Miss Leonard, as the French maid, raised many smiles on my tired face.

It was a perfect opportunity to remind me how valuable were American movies before the Hayes code, how adult and clichés-free. Many thanks to William Dieterle (and to French TV "ciné-club").

Short but not so sweet!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 31 July 2015]

Here's First National Pictures (owned, lock, stock and barrel at this stage by Warner Brothers) jumping on the then current affairs bandwagon of the stock market crash of 1929. Dull and seemingly brainless George Brent supposedly loses all of his money, but still manages to rake up $5,000 to send his wife (the super sexy Ruth Chatterton) to less hostile climes, where she has a flirtation with the really super dull Paul Cavanagh, here cast in the role of an Australian sheep farmer (even though his accent is upper-class British rather than any sort of Australian). We all know how this story is going to pan out, and worse still, the normally ultra-reliable William Dieterle obviously directed this one in his sleep. But it does have one virtue, namely it runs less than an hour! (Available on an excellent Warner Archive DVD, coupled with "Registered Nurse").

Decent Drama with Fine Performances

[Michael_Elliott · 21 November 2009]

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.

Sudsy Piece of Soap Masquerading as Social Commentary

[LeonLouisRicci · 6/10 · 1 July 2015]

A 60 Min. Pre-Code Soap about Rich People Before and After "The Crash". It's rather Light Weight except for the Pimping Out of Ruth Chatterton by Husband George Brent to get Stock Tips and some Melodramatic Scenes of Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me.

It is a Well Acted bit of Fluff Masquerading as Social Commentary, but the Movie's Convictions Waver and Nothing comes off as that Profound. The most Suffering comes from the Maid and Her Lover as She Tries to Rescues Him from Prison.

It's all just too Surface to Mean Much and the Ending is a Head Scratch. Certainly Worth a Watch for Chatterton Fans and a Glossy Peek at the Lives of Stock Manipulators. It's Hardly Palatable Today and No One On Screen, in Leading Roles, is Anyone Worth Caring much About.

Of some Interest is the Blatant Prostituting and "Insider" Trading that goes on with Nary an Eyebrow Raised and Everyone Drinking and Drinking in Direct Defiance of Prohibition.

Who knew such decadence?

[ScenicRoute · 9/10 · 19 April 2010]

A very high rating from me because of the baldness with which husband pimps wife and wife accepts same. Nobody does FEMALE better than Ruth Chatterton (with that of course the name of probably her most famous flick, and a must-see), and here she does it as tour-de-force - even making me doublecheck her age - she is passed off as "young" in the movie while at least 39, but she does the femme so well, I did need to review. Anway, the amoral way in which Ruth and George attack the early scenes is truly delicious. Sure, the movie finally adheres to convention, but not until after 45 minutes of such elegant pouting and flirting. And Ruth is never an object, always the center of her universe, casually creating and destroying per the whim of the moment. She has never let me down - I wonder if her later alcoholism was a way for her to hold onto just how good and memorable she is? George Brent (blank slate Irish immigrant that he was)is a good foil to her in this tailor-made role.

I really liked it

[goatland · 9/10 · 19 September 2006]

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.

The Tip

[gcarter1 · 8/10 · 19 September 2006]

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."

The Great Ruth Chatterton

[pauldeboef · 26 February 2021]

THE CRASH is a wonderful short film from start to finish. It is directed by William Dieterle in a very sophisticated style. The Warner Archive Collection DVD-R is an excellent transfer.

"Ruth Chatterton has given the finest portrayal of her career" says George Brent in the trailer. I agree and consider this film as her best. She was miscast in some of her films, in ''Lilly Turner" for instance, but the character of Linda Gault fits her like a glove. Chatterton does not act in this film, she IS her character. Her perfect acting is a knock-out in every scene. I never saw her any better.

Linda Gault is a spoiled rich woman, bored with life. When she is telling a lie to her husband she gets in big trouble. Eventually it will change her life completely.