The Purchase Price

This film deals with Stanwyck, who works as a singer in New York. She has been working the nightclub circuit since she was a teenager and is romantically involved with the leader of the underground crime world. Fixture of the pre-code world, Lyle Talbot, portrays the underground kingpin. Because breaking up with such a powerful man, like Talbot, may prove to be difficult, Stanwyck opts to escape to Montreal. In Montreal, she resumes her career under a new name. Stanwyck is spotted by one of Talbot's henchmen. In lieu of returning to Talbot, Stanwyck hatches a scheme with the maid at her apartment building. It seems that the maid has been corresponding with a North Dakota farmer, George Brent, who is looking for a mail order bride. In one of her letters, the maid mails Stanwyck's picture instead of her own, because she finds the youthful Stanwyck more attractive than herself. Sensing the perfect plan, Stanwyck offers to pay the maid two month's worth of wages if she can go to North Dakota in her place. The maid agrees.

Stanwyck and Brent marry and soon it's Stanwyck's turn to learn about life on a farm during the Great Depression. On their wedding night, Brent tries to make advances on new wife Stanwyck to consummate their relationship, but she turns him down and forces him to sleep elsewhere. I know they're married and all, but I don't blame her, she literally just met and married him that same day. I imagine however, that sex probably comes with the territory as a mail order bride. But I digress.

For most of the film, Brent is aloof to Stanwyck and keeps his distance. She genuinely begins to embrace life on the farm and learns how to sew, cook, clean, etc. She is friendly with the neighbors and even helps a neighbor who has recently given birth. Stanwyck helps out with the baby and even instructs a young Anne Shirley how she can help her mother who is recuperating from the birth.

The main conflict in the film, aside from Brent's unhappiness with Stanwyck, is that he is broke and will lose his farm if he cannot pay his back bills. His saving grace however is that he owns a strain of wheat that grows well and is of high quality. He's sure to sell his wheat if he grows and harvests it. Brent and Stanwyck are finally on the same page and work together to save the farm.

This was an okay film, definitely not among one of Stanwyck's best. It definitely doesn't rank up there with my favorite Stanwyck pre-code, Ladies They Talk About. She gives the part her all, even though the plot is somewhat absurd. Brent is just there. He doesn't do much except give Stanwyck the silent treatment. But then this strong silent type was probably Brent's interpretation of a farmer of Scandinavian ancestry living on the Great Plains.

There were definitely some pre-code elements in the film, like Stanwyck walking around the bedroom clad in only a short slip and knee high stockings. She also lays a negligee out on the bed for George Brent to see and get excited, but he's mad at Stanwyck, and won't take the bait.

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.

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-

THE PURCHASE PRICE is one of ten films Barbara Stanwyck for Warner Bros. in the early 1930's when she was under non-exclusive contracts to the studio and Columbia Pictures. The Columbia films are often quite good, several of them directed by Frank Capra, but most of the Warner Bros. she made in this period are little more than potboilers, films rarely running over 70 minutes with few ambitions. This title is among Stanwyck's weakest films although it is raised immensely by a typically fine Stanwyck performance making it much more interesting and appealing than it should be.

Stanwyck stars as Joan Gordon, a sexy nightclub torch singer who is the mistress of married bootlegger Lyle Talbot. This duo apparently have quite an open relationship as Talbot isn't too bothered by the fact that Stanwyck is also seeing society boy Hardie Albright who wants to marry her. When Albright finds out about Stanwyck's relationship with Talbot he dumps her, crushing Barbara's dream of a quiet life as somebody's wife. Wanting to get away from Talbot's lair, she skittles to Montreal and begins performing under a new name. While in Canada, she befriends hotel maid Leia Bennett whom she later learns is about to become a "mail order bride" - and has used Stanwyck's picture to net her fiancée! When Stanwyck sees some of Talbot's associates she knows it's only a matter of time before he comes up to Canada to get her so she offers Bennett $100 in exchange for letting her take her place as the wife-to-be ("Wow, a $100" Leia exclaims, "I can get a city husband for that!") Stanwyck then travels to North Dakota to meet "her" groom, poor farmer George Brent. They are married but the wedding night proves to be a disaster with Barbara brushing off George's crude attempt at love making. Infuriated, Brent refuses to have anything to do with after this on a personal level, Stanwyck simply becomes a wife on all levels except romantically.

This little film moves quickly and is entertaining but incredibility is all over the film. One little forgotten tidbit is that while Leia Bennett passed off Stanwyck's photo as her own she apparently used her own name but Barbara uses her real name of Joan while in North Dakota! And just why Stanwyck would so harshly reject Brent after no doubt having been pawed by scores of men far more rougher and less attractive? It makes about as much sense as Brent's willful refusal to forgive her for this one night of rejection (wouldn't many a man in this era have found a new bride less than at ease their first night together?) when it's clear she soon wants to make amends. There's also the little fact that Stanwyck is portrayed as a straight shooter, early in the film she insists to Albright she would have told him about Talbot - yet she doesn't give Brent a clue about the relationship or her past until Talbot shows up unannounced sometime into their marriage!

Barbara Stanwyck fully earns her reputation as an outstanding actress, she always seems sincere and real even in this silly little story. She's also stunningly beautiful in scenes where she is presented "naturally" without city artifice and heavy makeup. The big surprise for me was George Brent's excellent performance. Not known for being one of the more expressive of actors, Brent seems perfectly cast as the inexpressive, reserved farmer and was seldom more attractive (although being cast as about the only non-coarse hick caricature among the North Dakotans perhaps helps). He is terrific here and I can't remember him giving a better film performance. Lyle Talbot is also very good looking and so good-natured one has to wonder just why Stanwyck keeps running away from him unless she really DOES want to be just a typical housewife. Most of the supporting roles are fairly small and in bits one can see silent favorites Snub Pollard (as one of the locals) and Mae Busch (as an earthy blonde on the train with Stanwyck also in route to her mail-order man).

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.