The Price of a Song

The Price of a Song 1935 is a British crime film, directed by Michael Powell. It is one ofquota quickies Powell directed between 1931 and 1936. I features a largely forgotten cast only Felix Aylmer, here in a minor role, would go on to a significant film career.

Impecunious bookmakers clerk Arnold Grierson, seeing a way to easy money, forces his daughter Margaret to marry wealthy but obnoxious songwriter Nevern, ignoring her romance with local newspaper editor Michael Hardwick. Soon after the wedding, Grierson requests the loan of a significant sum of money from Nevern and is furious and humiliated to be flatly turned down. He begins to make elaborate plans to murder Nevern on the assumption that Margaret will then inherit her husbands estate. Meanwhile the desperately unhappy Margaret has rekindled her relationship with Hardwick. Nevern finds them in a caf together and causes a public scene. Margaret determines that her only course of action is to divorce Nevern, a prospect which horrifies her father.Nevern is in the process of composing a new song, and lodges a draft manuscript with his publisher. Making sure he has set up a foolproof alibi, Grierson goes to Neverns house and kills him as he is finalising his new composition. As he leaves through one door, Hardwick, intending to ask Nevern to divorce Margaret, arrives through another. Hardwick finds the body and alerts the police, who in the circumstances do not believe his story and arrest him on suspicion of murder. ........

Source: Wikipedia