The Crash (1932) - film review

To escape her poverty-ridden background, Linda Gault marries wealthy stockbroker Geoff Gault, but theirs is clearly a marriage of convenience, not of love.  Geoff uses his wife to elicit information from financiers to inform his investment decisions.  However, in 1929, this scheme backfires when the stock market suddenly collapses.  Virtually bankrupt, Geoff stays in New York to cover his debts whilst Linda heads off for Bermuda to avoid being seen in her new straitened circumstances.   There, Linda meets a man who owns a large sheep farm in Australia and, realising that he offers her a far better future than Geoff can provide, she decides to divorce her husband...

The Crash is a cynical portrayal of human nature which must, to a 1930s audience, have appeared shocking.  It is an engaging morality piece which, despite its anodyne and predictable plot, has a certain charm, thanks mainly to William Dieterle’s imaginative direction.  Ruth Chatterton plays the egocentric adventurer with cool efficiency and yet, remarkably, manages to retain our sympathy, probably because the male characters she interacts with appear even more spineless and selfish than her own.  Playing opposite Chatterton is George Brent, who appeared with her in three other films; the couple married shortly after making this film, but divorced two years later.

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