The Purse

Deals with the conscience or the lack of it, and what one or the other makes us do. An elderly woman finds a purse on a bus. She takes it home and discovers it contains some money. The woman who lost the purse collects insurance. the quetsion raised is does circumstance excuse taking what is not ours.

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

How to watch

This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. It may be possible for approved reseachers to view onsite at ACMI.

Learn more about accessing our collection

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

director

Patricia Watson

producer

Guy Glover

production company

ONF | NFB

Duration

00:11:00:00

Production places

Canada

Production dates

1966

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

008849

Language

English

Subject categories

Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → Ethics

Short films

Short films → Short films - Canada

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Black and White

Holdings

16mm film; Access Print (Section 1)

16mm film; Limited Access Print (Section 2)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/71964--the-purse/ |title=The Purse |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=19 June 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}

Canada, 1966

Please note