The Crash of 1929

"‘The Crash of 1929’ recounts the chain of events and life during the 1920s that led to the economic boom of that fabulous decade.

By 1929, Charles Mitchell, President of the National City Bank (which would become Citibank), had popularized the idea of selling stock and high yield bonds directly to smaller investors. Mitchell and a very small group of bankers, brokers, and speculators manipulated the stock market, grew wealthy, and their successes made them folk heroes of the day; this film shows the viewers that era through the descriptions and experiences of their descendants.

The daughter-in-law of Jesse Livermore, a Wall Street insider, describes how Jesse drove around town in one of six yellow Rolls Royces, had two yachts, private railway car and five homes, including an apartment on Fifth Avenue he bought to have a place where he could change clothes for the theater!

While the market was rising, there were very few critics and it was predicted that America would soon enter a time when there would be no more poverty, no more depressions — a “New Era” when everyone could be rich; but what happened was that it only made the rich, richer!"

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