Ten Cents a Dance

The material is poorly structured, and even more poorly directed. But Stanwyck, as the hardboiled-yet-astonishingly-naive taxi-dancer, still manages to maintain an amazing naturalness despite it all. To see what she's capable of in this early stage of her career when actually given a little help, check out "Ladies of Leisure". Things finally pick up around 25 minutes from the end, when she asks Cortez for the money. Blanche Friderici is a fabulous cross between Beulah Bondi and Margaret Dumont.

Barbara Stanwyck as a '10 cent a dance' escort who marries a loser because he promises to support her. And she got a rich guy courting her at the same time, but she stays loyal to her husband. It's a fairly sleepy story. No big moments with most of the troubles steaming from the morality of what she does for a profession. Lionel Barrymore as a director should consider himself lucky that he had Stanwyck in the lead keeping this one afloat.