Career
The same year, she played the lead role in Sam Wood"s romantic comedy The Manitoba in Possession, adapted from H. M. Harwood"s play of the same name. She was paired opposite Reginald Owen and Robert Montgomery. Purcell starred alongside Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante in the comedy The Passionate Plumber (1932), directed by Edward Sedgwick.
A French-language version of the latter film, Le Plombier amoureux, was filmed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at the same time.
In The Passionate Plumber she played a socialite, who enlists a plumber to act as her lover, to make her partner jealous. lieutenant was based on the play Dans sa candeur naïve by Jacques Deval.
lieutenant was the second screen adaptation of the play, following the 1928 silent film The Cardboard Lover. James L. Neibaur wrote in his book The Fall of Buster Keaton that "the entire production seems off-balance".
Despite not so favorable reviews, the film was a commercial success.
The New York Times wrote that Purcell "fits the mood of the comedy nicely". She was a part of a June 9, 1935 Lux Radio Theatre broadcast, based on the 1930 play Candle-Light. She also served as an adviser to Johnson Foundation.
