Why I Love Pre-Code Hollywood

As I write this, I'm watching a favorite film — The Purchase Price, from 1932, directed by William Wellman.

How's this for a plot: nightclub singer Joan Gordon (played by Barbara Stanwyck) breaks off her relationship with a married gangster in order to marry a man from a good family ― only to discover that the family has had her investigated and has discovered her dubious associations. Her hopes dashed, she flees to Montreal, with the gangster in pursuit. Seeking escape, when she learns that the hotel maid has used her picture to meet a man through a matrimonial service, Joan decides to take her place. She travels to North Dakota and marries a farmer (played by George Brent) she's never met, and must build a relationship with him while they face the hardships and difficulties of farm life.

And that's just to set up the story ― all of this seems to take place in the first ten minutes or so, and the film carries along at a brisk pace (as is the case with many films from this era), at just over an hour long. (You can watch the trailer for The Purchase Price here.)

If that sounds like an unusual premise, it's positively tame by comparison to another Barbara Stanwyck film ― Baby Face, released the following year. In it, she plays a woman who uses sex to entrap and control men as she climbs out of poverty to a penthouse apartment. Believe me, it's every bit as provocative as it sounds ― you can imagine how it might have been received in 1933. (You can see the trailer here.)

Baby Face was rejected by the New York State Censorship Board, which resulted in several of the film's more suggestive scenes being cut before release (along with, oddly enough, a reference to Nietzschean philosophy ― and the suggestion that Stanwyck's character go to the city and use what's she got to get what she wants!). The original, unedited version was presumed lost, until a print was discovered in 2004. (The story of that unexpected discovery, and brief audio clips that demonstrate the sort of changes that had to be made to satisfy the censorship board, can be heard here.)

I'm completely, hopelessly in love with the Barbara Stanwyck of this era. Someone once wrote that "she had that wonderful, undefinable combination of plainness bordering on homeliness and an almost feral sexuality." Sigh.