Anna Lucasta 1949

In Pennsylvania, the Lucasta family learns that Rudolf Strobel is coming to town to find a wife, and a family friend will send $4,000 to accompany him. The plan is to present one of their own daughters as the bride, and they settle on Anna Lucasta to be “sold” to Rudolf, while her alcoholic father, Joe Lucasta, initially resists. His daughter, Stella, is married to Frank, Stella’s husband, who uses threats and pressure to push Joe into agreeing with the scheme.

Anna Lucasta is painted as the family’s black sheep, living in Brooklyn and scraping by in a bar called Noah’s Ark. She is drawn to a sailor, Danny Johnson, who tells her he has saved enough money to go ashore, sparking the hope that he might propose marriage. Yet Danny does not follow through. When the family asks Anna to return home, she does so reluctantly, believing she has few other options.

Rudolf, however, is not the gullible outsider the family expects. An educated man who plans to work hard on the family land and even teach in a school, he quickly takes a liking to Anna, while [Joe] tries to steer him toward someone more “respectable.” Frustrated by her father’s meddling, Anna seeks a moment of escape and visits a bar.

The two eventually share a meal and Rudolf proposes the next day. Anna hesitates, haunted by painful memories from her past on the farm—memories of being scolded for kissing a boy, memories that pushed her to leave home. Feeling cornered, she heads for the train station to flee town. Rudolf pursues her, persuades her to stay, and offers the four thousand dollars he has with him, but the money is stolen by her family just before the wedding.

As the wedding nears, Danny reappears, and Joe confronts him with a chilling threat to ruin Rudolf’s reputation by revealing details of Anna’s past. Joe insists that Anna leave with Danny immediately. Faced with an exodus or ruin, Anna chooses to depart with Danny and returns to Brooklyn, leaving Rudolf behind. Yet Rudolf is relentless: he tracks her to Brooklyn, finds the bar where she works, waits in the shadows, and, when she fails to appear, leaves a quiet, somber message that her father has died and that he has moved on.

Anna eventually learns of Rudolf’s message and his ongoing hold on her future, but she finds him gone from the hotel and waiting outside the bar, still hoping for a chance at reconciliation. In the end, the saga centers on a man’s steadfast resolve and a woman’s struggle between past loyalties and a difficult, uncertain future.