Kimberly Tilley rescues forgotten stories of early twentieth century America from obscurity. Her books, Grievous Deeds (2023); Has it Come to This? (2022), Cold Heart (2020), and The Poisoned Glass (2019) were Amazon category best-sellers in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and India.
Kimberly owns OldSpirituals.com. She's very grateful for the wonderful community and two outstanding contributors to help fulfill the site's mission of rescuing fascinating stories from obscurity.
Kimberly is the cofounder of Pivot Talent Development LLC, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. PIVOT offers workshops, training, consulting, and coaching to help professionals improve performance, drive business impact, and transcend limitations.
Kimberly owns OldSpirituals.com. She's very grateful for the wonderful community and two outstanding contributors to help fulfill the site's mission of rescuing fascinating stories from obscurity.
Kimberly is the cofounder of Pivot Talent Development LLC, headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area. PIVOT offers workshops, training, consulting, and coaching to help professionals improve performance, drive business impact, and transcend limitations.
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I hope you’re all enjoying the Cold Snap classic movies so far!
Today’s movie is Ten Cents a Dance, a pre-code movie made in 1931. It was directed by Lionel Barrymore and stars my favorite actress, Barbara Stanwyck!
Movie Synopsis: Barbara O’Neill (Barbara Stanwyck) is a poor dance hall girl who catches the eye of the wealthy Bradley Carlton (Ricardo Cortez). Unfortunately for Carlton, Barbara is in love with her down-on-his-luck neighbor, Eddie Miller (Monroe Owsley). Ignoring the warning signs, Barbara marries Eddie but soon enough she finds he’s in deep trouble!
Barbara Stanwyck as the matriarch, Victoria Barkley, on The Big Valley TV series is the memory I have of her.
Jax! So glad to see you. I love pre-code movies so that is how I discovered Barbara Stanwyck. She was in Baby Face (with a cameo by a very young John Wayne) and Night Nurse (with a very young and wicked Clark Gable)!
Recommend you watch Stanwych in “Stella Dallas.”
I loved Stella Dallas! Great recommendation. You know what though? I’ve never seen Big Valley, which she’s probably most famous for. I want to check it out.
Barbara Stanwyck is new to me. I’m looking forward to watching this one!
She is wonderful, Ruby! She had a long career but this is one of her earliest films.
The photo of Barbara Stanwyck in your post caused me to doubt whether we were talking about the same person. I never saw a photo of Stanwyck at that young age. Wonder if “Ruby” on your post knows that Barbara Stanwick’s birth name is “Ruby Catherine Stevens.”
Is it? I always loved the name Ruby. I’m guessing our Ruby did not know that since she was unfamiliar with Barbara Stanwyck. I remember being shocked when I learned Jean Harlow’s birth name was Harlean Harlow Carpenter. Harlean seems like a much more glamorous name than Jean.
I didn’t know! I loved the movie so I suppose I am a Barbara Stanwyck fan now.
Kimberly, thank you for posting these movies. We’ve been snowed in and have watched every one.
I forgot to mention in the post: Ten cents in 1931 is equal to $2.02 today!