TEN CENTS A DANCE (1931)

Barbara Stanwyck, a gum-chewing tough gal, works at the Palais de Dance, a dance hall where men pay the working girls a dime to dance with them. Stanwyck is popular but her boss says she lacks animation and rhythm, blaming it on her troubles with her would-be boyfriend (Monroe Owsley) who lives at Stanwyck's boarding house and has, despite being unemployed, run up some gambling debt. The upper-class Ricardo Cortez comes in one night and, smitten with Stanwyck, just wants to sit and talk to her. He gives her a hundred dollar tip and she asks Cortez to give Owsley a job, which he does, as an accountant at Cortez's firm. Though Cortez continues to dote on Stanwyck, giving her money and a new dress, she decides to marry Owsley. It's easy to see where this pre-Code melodrama is going—Owsley slips into heel mode, losing money at gambling, hiding it from his wife, and staying out till all hours with disreputable pals and loose women. Stanwyck goes back to work at the dance hall and occasionally chats with Cortez who is still in love with her. When Owsley embezzles money from Cortez's firm and is about to be caught, Stanwyck visits Cortez at his high-rise apartment and asks for $5000. Cortez knows he's being played for a chump ("The only love letter to write to a woman: pay to the order of…") but gives it to her anyway. Owsley takes the money and replaces the embezzled amount, then proceeds to berate Stanwyck, assuming she compromised herself. Stanwyck is stuck between the jealous weakling husband and the loving but disillusioned Cortez. What to do?

The credits tell us that this movie is based on the popular song "Ten Cents a Dance," about the rough life of what was called a taxi dancer. It's depressing, telling of torn dresses, trampled feet, only running across "pansies and rough guys," and being too tired to go to sleep back at home. But after the first ten minutes or so, this movie leaves the taxi drivers and their troubles behind and becomes a predictable melodrama about a woman torn between loyalty to a heel and attraction to a rich guy who may think he can buy her for himself. But the outcome is never in doubt, partly due to the casting. We know Stanwyck will stay pure and true to herself (unlike in the infamous BABY FACE of 1933 in which she sleeps her way to the top); Owsley is pinched and passive (and weirdly looks a bit like Pee-Wee Herman) and is clearly not worthy of Stanwyck, whereas Cortez, who sometimes played bad guys, is rich, handsome and dignified, and is willing to wait for Stanwyck to come to her senses. Both actors are good, but Stanwyck is always worth watching—her characters are strong and smart (sometimes street-smart) and she can usually make even one-dimensional characters (like this one mostly is) interesting. Best line, Stanwyck to Owsley: "You're not a man—you're not even a good sample!" Pictured are Cortez and Stanwyck. [TCM]