The Purchase Price

This peculiar but interesting drama has Barbara Stanwyck as a weary nightclub torch singer with a "who cares?" attitude. To escape her underworld boyfriend, she decides to hide out in the bleak plains of North Dakota as a mail-order bride. As her shy farmer husband, the normally debonair George Brent is almost unrecognizable in a pair of overalls, but gives a sensitive characterization. The bulk of the plot follows the growing feeling between the reserved ‘country mouse' and the tough ‘city mouse', complicated by several villains. Tough guy director William Wellman keeps things moving at a clip, and uses his low budget wisely to stage several good set-pieces, including a drunken shivaree for the happy couple. In the supporting cast, Leila Bennett stands out as a plain-talking maid.

Sometimes I think you just have to be in the mood for certain films. This may have been one of those times. "The Purchase Price" from 1932, largely thanks to Barbara Stanwyck, is actually a very sweet film.

Stanwyck plays Joan, a torch singer, unhappy with her present life and the racketeer, Eddie Fields (Lyle Talbot) with whom she's involved. When she finds out that someone has used her photo and sent it off to be a mail-order bride, Joan decides to show up in person and takes off.

She ends up in farm country with Jim Gilson (George Brent) who's in debt up to his eyebrows. However, over the years, he has developed an excellent grain seed - if he can stave off the creditors until the next planting season, he'll be okay.

To Joan's credit, she settles in, determined to make him a good wife and to be a good neighbor, and she falls in love with Jim. When her ex-beau shows up, Jim jumps to some wrong conclusions.

Barbara Stanwyck is great in this, giving a warm, sincere performance. She is glamorous in the first few scenes (though boy, she can't sing), and she remains sexy and pretty even plainly dressed on the farm, causing a lot of men to notice her and make dumb old Jim jealous.

This is a different kind of role for George Brent, who soon would be well-dressed, mustached, and sophisticated as he played opposite Bette Davis. Here he's an oaf.

The movie is short and moves quickly. Stanwyck's performance helps give a freshness to a story that was old even back in 1932.

She may be dressed down for the farm wife's part, but this is Stanwyck at her youthful loveliest. So, can Joan (Stanwyck) adjust to the rigors of rural life after the glamor of big city nightclubs. If you can buy her becoming a mail-order bride as an alternative, you might buy the rest. Seeing her city girl alone on the vast Canadian prairie, suitcase in hand, waiting for her intended, does present a stretch. Nonetheless, now she's got purpose in life, no longer just a meaningless rich man's ornament. I do wish Brent as her mail-order hubby showed a little charm, something that would help us believe she would stick with her new life. Instead, he's overly dour and insensitive, wanting to manhandle her on their wedding night. Getting the two in step with each other makes up the movie's main part.

The movie's quite good at showing the rigors of farm life—the primitive farm house, the constant grubby toil, the relative isolation. I expect Dust Bowl audiences could identify with these demanding aspects, especially when the bank threatens to repossess Jim's (Brent) farm. That Joan manages to stick it out and thrive suggests that behind city decadence lies a common humanity and hidden grit-- a good message for that time and maybe any.

Anyway, pre-Code doesn't disappoint as Stanwyck gets to show off fancy and not-so-fancy underwear. Then too, sleeping arrangements leave little in doubt. Note too, how little is done to prettify either the rough-hewn people or their lives, even though most are stereotypes. Also, I could have done without the barking idiot as comedy relief. All in all, this Warner Bros. antique (1933) remains a fairly interesting little programmer, with a humane underlying message.

BARBARA STANWYCK is a city gal fed up with the sophisticated life of a nightclub singer and her lecherous boyfriend (LYLE TALBOT) and who sees an "escape" by fleeing to the country for a more bucolic existence and more wholesome environment. She gets more than she bargains for when her mail order husband turns out to be shy farmer (GEORGE BRENT), whom she at first repulses when he comes on too strong with his lovemaking and then spends the rest of the film trying to make it up to him.

The unusual domestic drama gives both Stanwyck and Brent offbeat roles which they handle beautifully. Brent is a surprising revelation as the shy, bumbling country guy with no understanding of Stanwyck's softer feelings and holding off loving her until the final reel, after the two of them have to save their crop of wheat from burning to the ground.

Only weak point in the story is the overdone nature of the wild party scene shortly after their wedding and Stanwyck's reaction to the crudeness of the country bumpkins. It seems a bit of a stretch to believe the way this scene unfolds.

But otherwise, an interesting look at Stanwyck who excels in showing both sides of her character--tough and tender--and Brent, who is usually the more debonair, sophisticated man showing us another side of his personality (and with some nice touches of humor too) as the shy groom. They both get excellent support from LYLE TALBOT as "the other man" in a rather thankless role that he makes believable.

Well worth watching and nicely directed by William Wellman.

The appeal of this somewhat run-of-the-mill film is Barbara Stanwyck in an early display of her mega-watt star power and her ability to turn mediocre material into something special.

Her character doesn't make much sense: a nightclub singer from the city who wants to get away from the bootlegger boyfriend hounding her and so agrees to an arranged marriage with a farmer up in the wilds of North Dakota! The bootlegger (played by Lyle Talbot) isn't threatening or abusive, so one wonders why Stanwyck needs to go to such great lengths to avoid him -- keep wondering, because the movie never explains it. But if you can swallow that, then you can easily swallow the fact that this urban good-time gal seems to know all about how to run a farm.

Which brings me back to Stanwyck. The movie's premise isn't remotely plausible, but Stanwyck somehow makes it so through the confidence of her performance. I really think she could make anything worth sitting through just for the pleasure of watching her.

The film does provide an interesting look at what farm life in the early days of the 1930s was like, a lifestyle I've only seen recreated in more modern-day movies.

Grade: B-