The Crash (Warner Bros.) (1932)

FINE FAN STUNT “Modern Screen,’’ one of the most popular fan magazines in the country, is publishing ‘‘The Inside Story of the Ruth Chatterton-George Brent Romance”’ in the October issue. Tie-up with your magazine stands to use the same type of poster display cards as suggested in the ‘‘Free Fictionization’’ copy. Get your newspaper to run the story, given below, as a special feature, illustrating it with the stills suggested. Credit must be given to ‘‘Modern Screen”’ in the line — ‘‘Reprinted by special permission of ‘Modern Screen’ Magazine.’’ A copy of the magazine will show you how the story can be dressed up with stills and captions. All the copy is given below, but a glance at the magazine will prevent possible confusion. Give the magazine eredit on the screen when you announce the story in advance of its use by the newspaper. The complete story, with title, captions and still number selections, follows: AMUUUUUHAAEEEU Ug ccc The Inside Story of The Ruth Chatterton— George Brent Romance By Herbert Cruikshank The real truth about the love of an Irish gentleman and the Sereen’s First Lady — a story as romantic and as beset with thorny difficulties as any screen drama. Reprinted by special permission of ‘‘Modern Screen,’’ in the October issue of which this story and many others about your private players appear. Observers have called it the ‘friendliest triangle in Hollywood’’ — the story of Ruth Chatterton and George Brent and Ralph Forbes. That is because in this triangle are involved a civilized lady and two civilized gentlemen who never indulge in histrionics either privately or in public. But behind the scenes there are cross currents of emotion of which only a man ‘‘on the inside,’’ such as this writer is, ean know—The Editor. George Brent, once George Nolan, a barefoot boy of Ballinasloe, half way ’twixt Galway and Athlone; then a daring ~~. Dublin dispatch rider during ‘‘the trouble’’; now a Hollywood sen fa len eantive to love. oe WUVay oy av begin with Fate made it necessary for George to pass two tests before it showered him with favor. One was for Warner Brothers. The other for Ruth Chatterton. Had he failed in the first, the chances are he would never have been eligible for the second. But he didn’t, “The studio likes me,” grins George, “but the star had to approve her leading man. So they packed me off over to Ruth’s attractive bungalow to undergo the once-over. Talk about embarrassing moments! I felt like take-me-home for $1.98. Or even $1.97, considering the depression! before forty of the studio’s severest critics. But the gods were good. Particularly the fat boy with the arrows. For, looking back, George guesses that Cupid had scored a couple of bull’s eyes. There were signs. “First day on the set,” Brent reminisces, “I spilled a cup of coffee, Ruth knocked a prop cordial into her lap, and between us we upset a glass of water. When a couple of troupers indulge in such shennanigans, there’s _ something unusual afoot. This time it was love. Director Al Green was right when he told me that those first day accidents would bring luck. It was surely my luckiest day! “T made my bow and felt a little better after her gracious greeting. We talked a little, but to tell the truth the-first thing I remember her saying is, ‘I suppose they want me to have a look at you.’ “T tried to be nonchalant and said ha-ha I supposed so, too. The next few seconds seemed an awfully long time, but finally: ee “By fhe second day, that love diag nosis was certain. You know the real thing when it hits you. And it hit me hard. I had an idea that Ruth felt a little the same way about things. A fellow can tell, somehow. During the rest of the picture we were both “Well, you look all right to me!’ “T felt like blurting out that she looked pretty swell to me. That’s the way I felt inside. But it was “searcely the time or place, was it?” George’s smile glistens again. You’re never quite certain whether or no this Ballinasloe laddybuck is passing out the Blarney. But it’s easy to believe that Ruth made his heart beat harder. The only wonder is that he didn’t tell her so then and there. It would be just like him. In any event, George was all set with the Warners. And, by the same token, he’d passed the Chatterton test, too. But before he and his heroine faced the cameras and one another in “The Rich Are Always With Us,” he had to stand up and be shot. For they wanted to be sure he was just the right type. It was a harrowing ordea!, to hear George tell it. Ruth herself read him the cue lines as he went through the first scenes of the film-that-was-to-be in the clouds. It wasn’t hard to play the romantic scenes. There weren’t enough of them to suit us. “Honestly, I just can’t remember how and when I asked her to marry me, After the day’s work, we’d discuss and rehearse the scenes for tomorrow. I’m afraid some personal discussions must have intruded, for we came to know one another much better. I found in Ruth everything a man might possibly desire in a woman. I made up my mind, God willing, not to lose her, and I did some tall arguing that I was specially ordained to bring her happiness. We managed to arrive at an understanding,” And in “The Rich Are Always With Us,” this understanding was plainly a paper and theatre. theatre and paper. SUPPLEMENTARY IDEA Have the newspaper running this story offer to its readers the complete series of installments in a specially printed booklet, appropriately illustrated with stills of Chatterton and Brent, and given with the compliments of Its a circulation builder for both SS STILL NUMBERS AND CAPTIONS FOR THIS SPECIAL STORY Caption for Still No. Brent Pub. D: “In Ruth I’ve found every single thing a man might seek in a woman,” says George. “Beauty, of course. And a mentality that shines with the brilliance of a silver dollar in the sun . .. And she has real honor in the masculine sense of the word.” Caption for Stills Nos. RAW205 and CP58: (Above, left and right) Ruth and George in “The Rich Are Always With Us” and in “The Crash.” For his role in the first-named, leading man Brent had to get Miss Chatterton’s O. K. as well as Warner’s. He got it all right. Cupid had something to do with it. In addition, use Still CP52 of Ruth Chatterton for illustration purposes. visible in every sequence. Ruth played each scene with a new warmth, a fresh charm, a deeper sincerity. The warmth, the charm, the sincerity of @ woman in love. And as for George, he was a lover playing “for keeps,” not just for film fun. Moreover, aside from these romantic manifestations, there was a very practical tip-off in the fact that the footage and the close-ups were on a strictly fifty-fifty basis, with hero and heroine each trying to give the other the better of it. That doesn’t happen in Hollywood—unless .. . Now, Ruth has been married before. And so, indeed, has George. So they weren’t just a couple of gaga kids swept away by the springtime. But nevertheless, they wanted to be “sure.” The course of true love is ever turbulent. And the Brent-Chatterton idyll was not entirely free from a fly in its ointment. Ralph _Forbes— This earlier romance had long since drifted definitely into the Dead Sea of forgotten affections. But Ruth had done nothing about trimming sail, or dropping the pilot. There had been no need—until now. For there was So it occurred that these charming people—Ralph, Ruth and George— found themselves webbed in adjacent corners of as perfect a triangle as any movie ever pictured. It was a Difficult Situation. And rapidly be_came untenable. Cultivated, highly civilized gentlefolk, all three shrank from enmeshment in a Page One scandal. Yet there had to be a show-down. And there was. Don’t be so naive as to believe that these three were all little pals together! A condition existed that required some confronting. It was up to George. And he didn’t duck. That’s not the Irish way. The two men met in an almost casual fashion. That was because they are civilized. But way down deep, cave-man lava must have seethed and bubbled threateningly. It was a pretty tense interview. It must have been. Yet, on the surface, all that occurred was a statement of the facts by George, a complete understanding on Ralph’s part, and as graceful an exit as the blond Briton ever contrived on stage or screen. “It’s not your fault,” he told George, “it’s not anyone’s fault.” As simple as that. And Reno readied the road. Ruth went abroad and stayed— well, too long to suit George. When she sailed away she told him: “Maybe we’ll change our minds, you and I. We’ll see whether it lasts. If it doesn’t, let’s tell one another. If it does...” George went on a vaudeville tour with Loretta Young. Quite a test in itself. The name of the sketch was “The Honeymoon.” While he played at love on the stage, his heart kept longing for the real honeymoon. George is twenty-nine, come the March day of the good Saint Padraic. Ruth is a year or so his senior. There’s not enough difference to count. What’s a month here or there? But there be those who wonder why Brent failed to yield to the lure of the Malibu mermaids, those curveful sirens among the Hollywood ingenues. No laggard in love, this lad Brent. He’s been places aplenty. One isn’t born possessing a way with the ladies. That’s acquired. And the reasons for his final choice has many a damsel wondering. “Of course they’re charming kids, those Hollywood youngsters, every one of ’em,” said George. “But for the love of Saint Keven, what would a man do with one as a wife? Shed _~@ iu your lap—unguratively aia iuver=" ally—from dawn ’til dark. You'd not. be able to call your soul your own, And, saving their presence, it’s not to be expected that kids in their ’teens can possibly possess the worldly knowledge, experience, or any of the qualities which make a woman companionable twenty-four hours in the day. Their attractions are for the very young—or the very old. I’m not in either category. I’ve told you once, and here it is agaiu—in Ruth I’ve found every single thing a man might seek in a woman, So far as I’m concerned she has everything. Beauty, of course. And a mentality that shines with the brilliance of a silver dollar in the sun. She’s not the all-possessive, clinging-vine type. And she has real honor in the masculine sense of the word. She has a code of ethics such as I never found in any woman. “She has natural dignity and innate refinement. Her natural culture has been augmented by her faculty for surrounding herself with life’s finer things. She won’t tolerate anything cheap or common. There’s no vulgarity, no rough stuff, on the set of a Chatterton picture. “That, by the way, may be why some persons consider her ‘difficult’ to get on with. She isn’t. You can get a pretty good estimate of character from those in close daily contact. Ruth is adored by every servant in the house and there’s not a studio employee who doesn’t swear by her. “There’s none of that ‘Hi, kid’ business in Ruth, but I’ve yet to meet anyone she hasn’t treated with courtesy.” : : Somehow, a picture recurs of the lovely Ruth, gently sophisticated, mentally brilliant, glamorous, beautiful, presiding at a board spread with snowy linen in a perfectly appointed room, hostess to her friends and her husband’s. And George, dark and flashing, trigger-quick at repartee, a genial host because he loves good company like the laird of an Irish manor. Perhaps, from opposite ends of the long, glistening table, their eyes will meet. And all the world that sees will know that in the perfect understanding, the love that has lasted, these two have found their happy ending. Page Five