After paying THE PURCHASE PRICE for his mail-order bride, a lonely wheat farmer gets more than he bargained for.
Barbara Stanwyck is first-rate, as always, in this pre-Code drama, as a nightclub chanteuse who leaves her East Coast entanglements behind and escapes to the Great Plains and marriage with a stranger. The story is completely inconsequential, but Stanwyck never fails to entertain. Whether she's crooning a sultry song, busheling wheat or jumping into a barroom fight, she's always believable.
George Brent effectively submerges his usually sophisticated mien to play the roughhewn farmer whose simple life and straightforward lovemaking is greatly complicated by Stanwyck's arrival. Brent' s evenhanded performance provides a fine counterpoint to her slightly more flamboyant portrayal.
Lyle Talbot appears as Stanwyck's wealthy former lover who follows her out from New York; David Landau is the rich Dakota landowner who tries to destroy Brent's farm; Hardie Albright as an immature playboy & Leila Bennett as a Montreal hotel maid each make the most of their short appearances.
Movie mavens will recognize brassy Mae Busch (veteran of many a Laurel & Hardy comedy) as the noisy dame seated next to Stanwyck on the train; sour faced Clarence Wilson as a grumpy Justice of the Peace; and young Anne Shirley as the poor farm girl with the new baby brother--all uncredited.
The film does a grave disservice to the good people of North Dakota, making them appear, almost without exception, as drunken louts, imbeciles or scoundrels. Was this really necessary?
Barbara Stanwyck is first-rate, as always, in this pre-Code drama, as a nightclub chanteuse who leaves her East Coast entanglements behind and escapes to the Great Plains and marriage with a stranger. The story is completely inconsequential, but Stanwyck never fails to entertain. Whether she's crooning a sultry song, busheling wheat or jumping into a barroom fight, she's always believable.
George Brent effectively submerges his usually sophisticated mien to play the roughhewn farmer whose simple life and straightforward lovemaking is greatly complicated by Stanwyck's arrival. Brent' s evenhanded performance provides a fine counterpoint to her slightly more flamboyant portrayal.
Lyle Talbot appears as Stanwyck's wealthy former lover who follows her out from New York; David Landau is the rich Dakota landowner who tries to destroy Brent's farm; Hardie Albright as an immature playboy & Leila Bennett as a Montreal hotel maid each make the most of their short appearances.
Movie mavens will recognize brassy Mae Busch (veteran of many a Laurel & Hardy comedy) as the noisy dame seated next to Stanwyck on the train; sour faced Clarence Wilson as a grumpy Justice of the Peace; and young Anne Shirley as the poor farm girl with the new baby brother--all uncredited.
The film does a grave disservice to the good people of North Dakota, making them appear, almost without exception, as drunken louts, imbeciles or scoundrels. Was this really necessary?