Purchase of God - Story Treatment by Lee Davis

Warning! Contains Plot Spoilers

Forty-three year old Baltimore spinster Christine Bell (played by Judy Reagan) has spent her adult life tending to invalid parents, having dropped out of nursing school after her first year in order to help out at home “until things got better”. Only things never “got better”. Never having had the time or inclination to build a life for herself outside the confines of her parent’s home, upon their deaths she finds herself a woman, in her words, “with no past and no future”.

Enter Steven Rogers (Ralph Price), a handsome medical student ten years Christine’s junior, who has heard of the sizable inheritance in real estate that Mr. and Mrs. Bell left their daughter. Vulnerable Christine falls victim to Steven’s conniving flattery, and soon she is writing checks for his med school tuition, books, rent, car payments, and wardrobe. A year later, when Steven graduates and finds a job at a clinic in Atlanta, Christine finances his relocation in the belief that they will soon marry.

Christine happily sells her house and belongings and drives to Atlanta to be with Steven. Arriving a day early, she discovers him with another woman. Confused and humiliated, she continues driving aimlessly for hours.

The next morning, a Sunday, finds Christine asleep in her car on the front lawn of a church in the tiny Georgia town of Cedar Hill. When the church service lets out, members mistake Christine for a visitor and she reluctantly meets the pastor’s 13-year-old daughter, Elizabeth (played by Rachel Hollaway), Jim Newman, a musically talented young man with a troubled past (Michael White), the attractive owner of the local boarding house, Ruth Dawson (Rita Hadley), and a gruff but benign radio station owner, Fred Bartow (Marvin Gardner), who offers Christine a job on the spot.

The axel of Christine’s car is broken and it is obvious she’ll be prisoner in this town for at least 24 hours. Still reeling from Steven’s betrayal, Christine finds a friend in Ruth Dawson, herself a victim of a relationship gone bad, and accepts the invitation to stay at Ruth’s boarding house overnight. At Ruth’s wise insistence, Christine also takes Fred Bartow up on his offer of work as fill-in late-night disk jockey at his Christian radio station. “You need to get Steven out of your mind. You won’t sleep tonight. You might as well get paid for staying up,” Ruth says.

Meanwhile, 13 year-old Elizabeth, who has lived in Cedar Hill all her life, feels as much a prisoner as Christine Bell. She should be enjoying these, the last few weeks of her summer vacation from school, but her father, Reverend Ron Humble (Paul Chappell), is having problems planning his church’s 100th anniversary celebration, specifically the formation of a choir to provide special music for the event. Humble’s wife is out of town on a family emergency and most of his church staff is on vacation, and in his frustration he has forbidden daughter Elizabeth from leaving the church grounds during the day, reasoning, “Knowing where you are is just one less thing for me to worry about.” John Stickler (Robert Williams), recently retired by his heart doctor from a career as an internationally-known music teacher and symphony conductor, is sympathetic to Elizabeth’s plight and has offered to help form a Centennial Sunday choir, but Stickler’s long list of credentials scares off all potential choir members save for Katrina St. Clare (Hazel Scott), a former Music Appreciation instructor with more confidence than talent.

To her own surprise, Christine decides to try out for the choir, singing an honest, revealing song of her own composition entitled ‘Sunday Painter’.

That night, things go well enough for Christine at the radio station, but when it comes time to take prayer requests over the phone at four AM, a nervous Jim Newman calls and, in the course of their conversation, challenges Christine’s atheistic view of life. “My mother believed, Jim, and all it got her was pain.” She attributes her mom’s long illness and death to a god that punishes people instead of loving them. Jim tries to persuade her otherwise and she hangs up on him, fearful of the concept of trusting God, becoming a ‘purchase of God’. Later Christine gets a phone call from Steven, who heard the station’s clear-channel radio signal and recognized his fiancee’s voice. They argue. Steven vows to find out where Christine is staying and claim her as his wife.

The next afternoon, music man Mr. Stickler continues tryouts for his Centennial Sunday choir. Jim Newman auditions, to everyone’s surprise. Jim, we learn, was once the marching band director at the local high school and was responsible for a near-fatal heatstroke incident that sent several teen band members to the hospital. Fired, sued and disgraced, Jim had been reduced to a hermit until today. Elizabeth asks him what made him want to audition for Mr. Stickler. He replies that calling into the radio station the night before, he heard someone (Christine) who sounded lost and alone, “and I knew that if I didn’t recommit myself to the Lord soon, I was going to wind up like her.” Christine is depressed by this revelation and remembers an admonition her mother once gave: “When you come to the point where God is all you have, you’ll find that God is all you need.”

The next morning Christine asks Ruth Dawson to “prove to me that God exists”. Ruth can only recount how the peace of God has seen her through bad times and how He converses with her via prayer, Bible reading, and the words of friends each day. When Christine prays with Ruth, she sees a vision of her smiling mother.

Meanwhile, when Elizabeth is further quarantined by her father the preacher, her frustration comes to a head and she smashes the church’s new Centennial Celebration stained glass window. Although Elizabeth confesses, witnesses tell police they saw Jim Newman at the church the evening before. A sheriff’s deputy goes to Jim Newman’s house to question him. Frightened, Jim flees into the woods outside Cedar Hill.

A week later, Jim appears at Mr. Stickler’s choir rehearsal, where Christine, Elizabeth, Katrina St. Clare and others have been drafted to sing. Elizabeth and her Dad have made their peace and Reverend Humble makes specific plans to spend more time with his daughter. Stickler, as a gift to the church, has the window repaired, and in celebration he and Rev. Humble sing a song and do an impromptu song and dance. The activity is too much for Stickler’s fragile heart and he collapses.

At the hospital it is revealed that Stickler suffered a mild stroke. Christine, Jim, Elizabeth and Katrina decide that, in Stickler’s honor, they will continue practicing the Centennial Sunday music and present it as planned.

It is nearly sunrise when Christine, Jim and Katrina get into the car to return to Cedar Hill. Through a misunderstanding, all three fall asleep and 13-year-old Elizabeth is left holding the car keys. She’s never driven before, but she takes the wheel.

After a high-speed chase with the Sheriff and a near-collision with a freight train, Elizabeth stops the car on a bridge outside town. There, waiting, is Steven. Christine invites him to share the new life she has discovered among Christian friends. He refuses and demands she return to him, reminding her how weak she is and how she needs a strong leader. She tells him that she has found that strong leader in Jesus Christ the Son of God. Steven laughs. Christine gets back into the car. Steven stands in front of the car, refusing to let it pass. Elizabeth, however, guns the engine and chases Steven over the rail of the bridge and into the water.

Everyone takes part in Centennial Sunday, even Mr. Stickler, who is wheeled-in as Jim, Christine and Elizabeth sing their special music to the delight of the entire church.