THE PURCHASE PRICE (1932) B/W 68m dir: William Wellman

w/Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Lyle Talbot, Hardie Albright, David Landau, Murray Kinnell, Leila Bennett, Matt McHugh, Clarence Wilson, Lucille Ward, Dawn O'Day (Anne Shirley), Victor Potel, Adele Watson, Snub Pollard

From the Turner Classic Movies website (www.tcm.com), this article about the film by Jeremy Arnold:

"Even in the 1930s, an era of far-fetched movie plots, they didn't come much wilder than in The Purchase Price (1932). In this Warner Brothers melodrama, Barbara Stanwyck plays a torch singer who breaks off her affair with a married gangster (Lyle Talbot) in order to marry a decent guy. When the decent guy's family finds out about her association with gangsters, they want no part of her, and she runs away, eventually ending up as a mail-order bride for struggling North Dakota farmer George Brent. Some racy dialogue on the train to North Dakota reveals the pre-Code nature of the film: 'You know what they say about men with bushy eyebrows and a long nose!' says one of the other mail-order brides as she holds up a banana.

"After one of the more bizarre movie weddings you'll see (for starters, one witness brings a bowl of cake batter to stir during the ceremony, and the wedding ring ends up in it), Stanwyck learns to love Brent and the rural life, but the coincidental reappearance of Talbot makes Brent mistrust her. Stanwyck must also deal with a rival farmer, snowstorms and ultimately a raging wheat-field fire. For that scene, Stanwyck insisted on doing the action herself after she was unsatisfied with the performance of her double, and she ended up with leg burns and blisters.

"The script for this fascinating, zippy concoction was by Robert Lord and based on Arthur Stringer's novel The Mud Lark, which was first serialized in The Saturday Evening Post in late 1931. Most critics echoed The New York Times, which called the movie 'totally incomprehensible' and 'one of the weirdest scenarios within the memory of man ... Many individual scenes are undeniably good, but the effect is of fifteen scenarists collaborating on a story without consulting each other.' Variety concluded that Brent and Stanwyck were 'both 100% miscast.' The Kansas City Star, however, latched onto a thoughtful point when it declared, 'The picture has more entertainment value than the plot has logic.' The reviewer added, 'Miss Stanwyck continues to exercise her uncanny ability to make the most phony heroines seem like human beings.'

"The Purchase Price was directed by William Wellman, who had also recently directed Stanwyck and Brent in So Big (1932). Lyle Talbot, interviewed for TNT, shared some tales of the colorful director: 'He'd seen a picture in which John Barrymore had belched and he just thought that was wonderful that they'd let him do that.' Wellman asked Talbot to belch in a particular spot in The Purchase Price. Initially reluctant, Talbot ultimately did it. Then, he recalled, '[Darryl] Zanuck sent down a note --- what's going on with Talbot? Don't have him be doing this!'

"Later on, before a fight scene between Talbot and Brent, Wellman approached each actor privately with the instruction: 'let him have it.' The actors knew not to actually hit each other without warning and worked the fight out between themselves beforehand. However, when Talbot flew back against a wall (as planned), his head struck a slightly-protruding nail. 'It just bled like mad. They had to take me over to the infirmary and sew me up. Wellman loved it. He said, "Talbot, what a scene! That was great."'

"Wellman and Barbara Stanwyck liked and respected each other deeply. In a foreword to a 1983 book on Wellman by Frank T. Thompson, Stanwyck wrote, '"Wild Bill" Wellman ... was anything but "wild" when you worked for him. He was gentle and patient. He didn't really tell you what to do. He took it for granted that you knew your business --- but there was an understanding and guidance. Bill did his homework, so to speak, and his direction was mapped out long before he started a film; he knew his shots and paced them and you accordingly.'

"Wellman in turn once supplied a short quote for a book on Barbara Stanwyck. He wrote: 'On one of Miss Stanwyck's interviews she mentioned me as one of her favorite directors and ended with "I love that man." Needless to say I was very proud and had a lump in my throat which does not happen to me very often. Barbara Stanwyck --- "I love that girl."'

"Stanwyck was in the throes of a turbulent marriage with vaudeville star and stage actor Frank Fay while making The Purchase Price. Fay's career was heading downhill as her own stardom was rising, and he couldn't handle it, sometimes beating her. Stanwyck biographer Axel Madsen has written that the actress confided in Wellman with her marital problems, and that three years later, when Wellman submitted his first draft of A Star Is Born, producer David O. Selznick 'pronounced it too close to the Fays' real-life drama.' Stanwyck and Fay divorced in 1935.

"Stanwyck's rendition of 'Take Me Away' in The Purchase Price marked the first time she ever sang on screen."

The following contains information you may not want to know before viewing the film for the first time:

From Starring Miss Barbara Stanwyck by Ella Smith:

"[Stanwyck's] next picture (for Warners) was William Wellman's The Purchase Price. Melodramatic to the core --- with villains, mortgages, and saloon fights --- this one gets away with a lot because of Wellman's tricks.

"It opens with Stanwyck as a torch singer in New York who is 'fed up with it all' --- including her racketeer lover, Lyle Talbot --- and yearns for some fresh air. To get it, she goes just about as far from credibility as possible --- all the way to Elks Crossing, North Dakota, where she becomes the mail-order bride of farmer George Brent.

"The rest of the film shows them trying to adjust to each other, and cope with the land and their neighbors. Brent has never had a bride before, and he is a little heavy-handed. On their wedding night --- which occurs only a few hours after they have met --- he attacks her, and finds himself sleeping in the barn --- alone. When she gets to know him better and calms down, he cannot forget that first night. And it takes the entire film, and a lot of bizarre events, to bring them together.

"Among these, there is a wild shivaree, a villainous neighbor who covets Stanwyck and the farm, a snowstorm through which she rides to help a neighbor with a new baby, the appearance of Talbot who has tracked her down, a saloon fight between the two men with Stanwyck caught in the middle, the harvesting of a prize crop of wheat, and a fire --- set by the jealous neighbor --- which Stanwyck and Brent beat out with blankets.

"Of the fire, cinematographer Sidney Hickox (who also photographed Stanwyck in So Big, A Lost Lady and Blowing Wild) says:

"We had a double for Miss Stanwyck but after the first take, when the double did not show enough action, Miss Stanwyck said she would do the scene herself, which she did, and she was burned around the legs, resulting in blisters --- painful but not serious burns.

"Anne Shirley (whose name was still Dawn O'Day and who had appeared, too, in So Big ---although not with Stanwyck) played the daughter of the neighbor with the new baby. Because Wellman was no slouch on saving time, She recalls that she went to work at 9a.m. and was finished by noon. This wasn't so helpful to her budget, but it was fine for the film. She remembers that she had to hold the baby in the scene and 'I'd never seen a baby before.' Wellman's words to her were: 'If you drop that ...'

"The Purchase Price is dressed up with rough humor and crazy characters. There is, for instance, the wedding ceremony. It begins with the purchase of a ring and Brent's sharp haggling with the jeweler to get the price down. The ring is too big for Stanwyck, but it is the smallest Elks Crossing carries.

"At the home of the Justice of the Peace, witnesses are supplied in the form of his wife --- who brings a bowl of cake batter with her --- and a half-wit who works for them. While the Justice marries the couple, with little interest and less tact, his wife stirs the batter and the half-wit eyes Stanwyck --- until he is distracted by a couple of dogs fighting outside.

"At the completion of the ceremony, Stanwyck's ring falls off. The wife goes to retrieve it and winds up submerging it in cake batter, bumping into the stove behind her, and bringing a large stovepipe down on them all. When Stanwyck is finally in possession of the 'battered' ring, it's pretty apparent the marriage has not been made in heaven.

"This is the way most of the scenes are handled, and the approach makes the film entertaining. While it produces no more than reasonable acceptance of the couple's problems, to ask any more of this script would have been pushing it. Wisely, Wellman didn't.

"Critical reaction is best summed up by the observer who found the film 'worth watching,' principally because of' Stanwyck who 'as always, is as real as the girl next door --- and much easier to look at.' She does do a fine job. It's a good role for her and allows her to use her sense of humor (one of Hollywood's best) to advantage. Stanwyck and George Brent work well off each other in comedy that is based on awkward or ludicrous situations. The combination would continue to be complementary in Baby Face, The Gay Sisters, and My Reputation."