Cinema Revisited: The Purchase Price (1932)
Directed by William Wellman. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Lyle Talbot, Hardie Albright, David Landau, Murray Kinnell, Leila Bennett, Anne Shirley, Clarence Wilson, Tiny Sandford, Mae Busch, Snub Pollard, Matt McHugh, Victor Potel. Running time: 68 minutes. Released July 23, 1932.
William Wellman is noted for having directed such harrowing pre-code dramas as "The Public Enemy," "Wild Boys of the Road," and "Heroes for Sale," but he would take assignments to helm programmers like "The Purchase Price." The film is that much better as a result.
Based on the story “The Mud Lark” by Arthur Stringer, the movie deals with a nightclub singer named Joan Gordon who flees her gangster boyfriend and performs up in Canada under an assumed name. Soon, however, she learns the hoodlum’s accomplices have discovered where she is, and realizes he is likely on his way. Just at that time, her cleaning woman reveals that she has agreed to be a mail order bride for a farmer back in the states, but it is Joan’s picture she sent. Joan sees this as a good way to get out of town undetected. She gives the maid $100 and goes herself. Since the farmer expects her, based on the photo, it works out.
Since this is a pre-code movie, the sexual innuendo is far more daring than would be allowed only a couple years later. Joan arrives in the farm town, connects with the farmer, but pushes away his physical advances in a pretty rough scene that would never have gotten past the production code censors after 1934. The body of the film then presents Joan re-adapting from the city life she’s always understood to a rural existence with which she has no experience. There is an unsettling scene where Joan goes to see a woman who just had a baby with no doctor or husband. The terrified eyes of the woman’s daughter, the agonized cries of the baby, and the woman lying on the floor, are powerful images that are settled when Joan helps clean the home, care for the child, and teach the daughter to respond to it favorably.
George Brent, best known for more suave characters, seems miscast as the farmer, fine actor that he is. Barbara Stanwyck as Joan, is outstanding. David Landau is positively frightening as the lecherous country neighbor with eyes on Joan. Lyle Talbot has no trouble conveying the small town gangster whom Joan has left behind.
Screenwriter Robert Lord, who adapted Stringer’s original story for the movies, was a master at punching up every scene with sharp dialog that incorporated a lot of period slang. Lines like “I’m bugs about ya” and “You know what they say about men with bushy eyebrows and a long nose” are delightful, while Stanwyck completely owns the soliloquy she gives near the beginning of the film that defines her character: “I've been up and down Broadway since I was fifteen years old. I'm fed up with hoofing in shows. I'm sick of night clubs, hustlers, bootleggers, chiselers, and smart guys. I've heard all the questions and I know all the answers. And I've kept myself fairly respectable through it all. The whole atmosphere of this street gives me a high-powered headache. I've got a chance to breathe something else, and boy, I'm grabbing it.”
At a compact 68 minutes, "The Purchase Price" is a sharp, breezy, entertaining little drama with a solid cast right down to the tiniest bit parts. Part of the fun is spotting the likes of Snub Pollard, Clarence Wilson, Anne Shirley, and Tiny Sanford in small roles. Director Wellman nicely maintains a comfortable rhythm with medium shots framing most of the action, but the establishing shot where Stanwyck gets off the train and is surrounded by pure desolation in the negative space is quite remarkable.
"The Purchase Price" is available on DVD in one of the Forbidden Hollywood collections that celebrate pre-code cinema. As a representation of this director, these stars, and this studio (Warner Brothers), it is a competent programmer.