The dime novel is a form of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. popular fiction issued in series of inexpensive paperbound editions. The term dime novel has been used as a catchall term for several different but related forms, referring to story papers, five- and ten-cent weeklies, "thick book" reprints, and sometimes early pulp magazines. The term was used as a title as late as 1940, in the short-lived pulp magazine Western Dime Novels. In the modern age, the term dime novel has been used to refer to quickly written, lurid potboilers, usually as a pejorative to describe a sensationalized but superficial literary work.
Dorothy Lamour was an American actress and singer. She is best remembered for having appeared in the Road to... movies, a series of successful comedies starring Bing Crosby and Bob Hope.
Dorothy Stuart Hamill is a retired American figure skater. She is the 1976 Olympic champion and 1976 World champion in ladies' singles.
A chorus line is a large group of dancers who together perform synchronized routines, usually in musical theatre. Sometimes, singing is also performed. While synchronized dancing indicative of a chorus line was vogue during the first half of the 20th century, modern theatre uses the terms "ensemble" and "chorus" to indicate all supporting players in a stage production.
Arthur Schwartz was an American composer and film producer, widely noted for his songwriting collaborations with Howard Dietz.
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" is one of the best-known American songs of the Great Depression. Written by lyricist Yip Harburg and composer Jay Gorney, it was part of the 1932 musical revue Americana; the melody is based on a Russian-Jewish lullaby. The song tells the story of the universal everyman, whose honest work towards achieving the American dream has been foiled by the economic collapse. Unusual for a Broadway song, it was composed largely in a minor key. The song became best known through recordings by Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallée that were released in late 1932. The song received positive reviews and was one of the most popular songs of 1932. As one of the few popular songs during the era to discuss the darker aspects of the collapse, it came to be viewed as an anthem of the Great Depression.
42nd Street is a 1980 stage musical with a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, lyrics by Al Dubin and Johnny Mercer and music by Harry Warren. The 1980 Broadway production won the Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Choreography and it became a long-running hit. The show was also produced in London in 1984 and its 2001 Broadway revival won the Tony Award for Best Revival.
A taxi dancer is a dance partner in a ballroom dance. Taxi dancers work on a dance-by-dance basis. When taxi dancing first appeared in taxi-dance halls during the early 20th century in the United States, male patrons typically bought dance tickets for a small sum each. When a patron presented a ticket to a chosen taxi dancer, she danced with him for the length of a song. She earned a commission on every dance ticket she received. Though taxi dancing has for the most part disappeared in the United States, it is still practiced in some other countries.
Dime museums were institutions that were popular at the end of the 19th century in the United States. Designed as centers for entertainment and moral education for the working class (lowbrow), the museums were distinctly different from upper middle class cultural events (highbrow). In urban centers like New York City, where many immigrants settled, dime museums were popular and cheap entertainment. The social trend reached its peak during the Progressive Era. Although lowbrow entertainment, they were the starting places for the careers of many notable vaudeville-era entertainers, including Harry Houdini, Lew Fields, Joe Weber, and Maggie Cline.
Honolulu is a 1939 American musical comedy film directed by Edward Buzzell and starring dancer Eleanor Powell, Robert Young, George Burns and Gracie Allen. The picture was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Also appearing in the film are Rita Johnson, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Sig Rumann and Ruth Hussey.
A Good Time for a Dime is a 1941 Disney short film in which Donald Duck watches a risqué Daisy perform the "Dance of the Seven Veils" in a Mutoscope at a penny arcade nickelodeon peep show. Donald also struggles with a crane drop machine and a miniature airplane ride.
"Big Spender" is a song written by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields for the musical Sweet Charity, first performed in 1966. Peggy Lee was the first artist to record the song for her album of the same name also that year. It is sung, in the musical, by the dance hostess girls; it was choreographed by Bob Fosse for the Broadway musical and the 1969 film. It is set to the beat of a striptease as the girls taunt the customers.
Dorothy Lena Young was an American entertainer who worked as a stage assistant to magician Harry Houdini from 1925 to 1926. She later became a Broadway actress as well as a touring dancer.
Bright Lights, later retitled Adventures in Africa, is a 1930 American pre-Code musical comedy film produced and released by First National Pictures, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. It premiered in Los Angeles in July 1930 but was edited and rereleased in early 1931. Although it was photographed entirely in Technicolor, the only surviving print is in black and white. The film stars Dorothy Mackaill, Frank Fay, Noah Beery and Frank McHugh. It also features the screen debut of John Carradine, who appears in a small, uncredited role.
Edward Graczyk is a playwright originally from Ohio. He wrote several children's plays early in his career, but became better known as the author of 1976's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. In 1982, Graczyk won the Best Screenplay Award at the Belgium International Film Festival for Robert Altman's motion picture adaptation.
"Bring a Little Lovin'" is a song written by Harry Vanda and George Young of the Australian rock group The Easybeats. The song was written for the Spanish band Los Bravos. Their version was released as a single in April 1968 and reached number fifty-one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.
Five and Dime is a 1933 cartoon short by Walter Lantz Productions and stars Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. It is the 74th Oswald short produced by Lantz and the 125th overall.
Blondie Meets the Boss is a 1939 American comedy film directed by Frank R. Strayer and starring Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake.
The Wiggles characters are a group of characters who perform with the Wiggles, the Australian children's music group. Aside from the eight Wiggles, four secondary characters, along with a troupe of singers, actors, and dancers, appear in their television series, videos, and live concerts. These characters were developed in the 1990s and were originally played by group members and by Anthony Field's brother Paul Field, the band's manager. Later in the group's history, the characters were played by hired actors dressed in the characters' costumes.
Aladdin and His Lamp is a 1952 American fantasy adventure film directed by Lew Landers and starring Johnny Sands, Patricia Medina and Richard Erdman. It was shot in Cinecolor and produced by Walter Wanger for distribution by Monogram Pictures.
