[5] Independent, low-budget producer Willis Kent was impressed by the young actress and signed her to a contract in 1930.

Kent changed her professional name from the unpretentious Clara Parry to the more elegant Phyllis Barrington and tried to promote her as an important player.

Perhaps her most notable credit was Ten Nights in a Bar-Room, the 1931 sound "rematch" of William Farnum and Tom Santschi recreating their epic, barehanded fight scene from the 1914 silent feature The Spoilers.

[7] Barrington also appeared in various Willis Kent melodramas, including The Law of the Tong (1931), with John Harron and Jason Robards, Sr.,[8] Sinister Hands (1932) with Jack Mulhall,[9] Sucker Money (1933), with Mischa Auer,[10] and her last picture, The Murder in the Museum (1934), with Henry B. Walthall and John Harron.

[3][12] Her tenure with Willis Kent guaranteed her steady employment during the Depression years, but it didn't further her career or advance her to more important pictures at major studios.