The story of Expensive Women
Expensive Women tells the deceptively simple story of a woman with wealth, beauty, and every material advantage—yet she can't seem to find the one thing money can't buy: genuine love. Surrounded by possible suitors, each with their own designs and motivations, she must navigate a world where it's nearly impossible to distinguish real affection from calculated interest. The film captures a particular anxiety of the Jazz Age and early Depression era: the isolation that comes with privilege, and the gnawing suspicion that everyone around you wants something. It's a 60-minute drama that doesn't waste time getting to the heart of its premise, moving briskly through encounters and complications as our protagonist searches for authenticity in a sea of artifice.
What makes the film's premise compelling is how it inverts the typical "poor girl makes good" narrative of the era. Here, being rich is the problem. The suitors circle not out of love but out of hunger—for money, status, a connection to power. The woman at the center of it all becomes almost a cipher, a mirror in which everyone else's ambitions are reflected. That's the real drama: not whether she'll find love, but whether she can even trust her own judgment anymore.
Behind the making of Expensive Women
Expensive Women arrived in 1931 as a Warner Bros. picture directed by silent film veteran Hobart Henley, who'd spent the previous decade navigating the transition from silent to sound cinema. The film starred Dolores Costello, who'd been a leading lady for Warner Bros. since 1925 and was one of the studio's most bankable names. Costello brought a particular kind of elegance to the role—she was trained in the theatrical tradition and carried herself with a grace that translated beautifully to screen, even as dialogue became essential to the medium. This would turn out to be her final film as a leading lady for the studio. Within months of its release, Costello announced her retirement from Hollywood to become the wife of John Barrymore (one of the era's most celebrated actors) and to focus on raising their family.
The film was made during the pre-Code era, that wild window between the advent of sound and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code in 1934, when filmmakers had considerably more freedom in depicting adult relationships, moral ambiguity, and sexual frankness. Warner Bros. was particularly aggressive in exploiting that freedom—the studio thrived on grittier, more realistic stories than their competitors. Expensive Women benefited from that ethos, allowing for a portrait of romantic entanglement that doesn't resolve neatly or moralistically. The runtime of 60 minutes reflects the era's economy of storytelling; there's no padding, no subplot about a loyal friend or a misunderstanding that takes three reels to untangle. Every scene moves the central question forward.
What makes Expensive Women stand out
Costello's performance anchors the entire film. What's striking is her ability to convey quiet desperation beneath a composed exterior—she's playing a woman who can't afford to seem desperate, who has to maintain the facade of a woman who has everything, even as she's falling apart inside. There's a restraint to her acting that feels very much of its moment, before the Method revolution would encourage actors to externalize every emotion. She does more with a glance or a pause than many performers do with grand gestures.
The supporting cast circles around her like sharks, but they're not cartoonish villains. Each suitor is drawn with enough specificity that you can understand why she might, for a moment, believe in him. That's what makes the film genuinely unsettling—it's not that the men are obviously bad; it's that their motivations are so entangled with genuine attraction and genuine financial need that nobody (including the audience) can quite sort out where one ends and the other begins. I keep coming back to a particular scene where a suitor makes an impassioned declaration of love, and Costello's face registers not joy but doubt—a flicker of uncertainty that suggests she's heard this before, or something like it, and she's learned not to trust the words.
The film doesn't offer easy answers. It won't give you a triumphant ending where love conquers all, or a cynical ending where our heroine accepts that love is a transaction. Instead, it leaves you with something messier and more true to life: a woman who's learned something about herself and about the world, but who still has to live in that world tomorrow. That complexity is what separates Expensive Women from the melodramas that surrounded it in 1931.
How to stream Expensive Women online
Expensive Women is currently available on major OTT services, and Movie OTT maintains an up-to-date tracker of exactly where the film is streaming right now. Since rights and availability shift frequently across platforms, the "Where to Watch" widget at the top of this page will show you the most current options in your region—whether that's a subscription service, a rental platform, or a free ad-supported option. Movie OTT aggregates this information across dozens of services, so you don't have to hunt through each one individually. Given the film's age and its status as a catalog title, it cycles on and off various platforms, so it's worth checking the widget before assuming your preferred service has it.
Frequently asked questions
Q: Is Expensive Women based on a true story?
No, Expensive Women is an original screenplay written for the screen, not an adaptation of a novel or play. The story and characters were created specifically for this 1931 Warner Bros. production, though the themes about wealth and romantic deception were certainly drawn from the social anxieties of the era.
Q: Who directed Expensive Women?
Hobart Henley, a veteran of the silent film era, directed the picture. Henley had built his reputation in the 1920s and was one of the many silent directors who successfully transitioned to sound cinema in the early 1930s.
Q: Was Expensive Women Dolores Costello's last film ever?
No—it was her last film as a leading lady for Warner Bros., but not her last film overall. She retired in 1931 but returned to acting five years later after her marriage to John Barrymore ended. However, she never regained the prominence she'd enjoyed as a Warners star during the 1920s and early 1930s.
Q: How long is Expensive Women?
The film runs 60 minutes, which was a common length for dramatic features in 1931. It's a brisk, tightly constructed story with no wasted scenes.
Q: Why is Expensive Women considered a pre-Code film?
Expensive Women was made and released in 1931, before the Motion Picture Production Code was strictly enforced in 1934. This gave filmmakers like director Hobart Henley more freedom to depict adult relationships, moral ambiguity, and social critique without the heavy-handed censorship that would follow.
Final thoughts on Expensive Women
Expensive Women deserves attention not as a historical curiosity but as a genuinely smart film about the gap between appearance and reality, between what we want to believe and what we can afford to know. It's Dolores Costello's farewell to her role as a studio star, and she goes out on a note of quiet intelligence. The film won't blow you away with spectacle or sentiment—it's too restrained for that. But if you're interested in 1930s cinema, in how pre-Code Hollywood tackled adult themes, or in Costello's work, it's absolutely worth tracking down. Movie OTT makes that easier than ever.
