Baby Face

Baby Face (1933)

Runtime: 76 minutes

Directed by: Alfred E. Green

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook, Alphonse Ethier, Margaret Lindsay

From: Warner Bros.

As the kids would say, this movie be wildin' out.

This was yet another motion picture that played on Turner Classic Movies so due to the high ratings it has on the IMDb and Letterboxd, a Sunday night viewing seemed appropriate. Turns out, this was even crazier than I had heard and expected from this Pre-Code drama. The version that they show on TCM is the “restored” one, from an old print that was found. What was officially released back in '33 had some moments too vulgar even for that era, necessitating some changes after limited preview screenings; I'll extrapolate on later.

In unedited form it starts off with quite the bang; Barbara Stanwyck-Lily-is forced to worked at her father's speakeasy. There's the revelation that-in so many words-she's been PIMPED OUT to her father's customers since the age of FOURTEEN. One guy there is just like Harvey Weinstein, persistent in sexually harassing her. Even after having coffee poured on his hand after he feels up her leg-a .gif I have seen elsewhere-it takes a beer bottle to the head to drive him away. Things happen, and the father dies. The only friends she has is a black lady who also works there and a cobbler who loves Friedrich Nietzsche and tells her to use her womanly powers to succeed in life and take advantage of dumb men. No, really. The two ladies hop on a boxcar and it all but says Lily has sex with a guard to avoid being kicked out. Of course that is another bit that had to be cut out.

Once she reaches the big city, Lily uses her womanly ways to achieve success. In a tremendous visual you see throughout, she literally sleeps her way to the top; this is shown via a model of a building where due to carnal actions, she moves up through the various departments of a bank and the higher you go up in the building, the better the position... wait, let me say “the better the department” instead. This results in many broken hearts, an engagement ruined and multiple men dying! Despite all this, I still greatly enjoyed Lily's path of destruction. Stanwyck's performance is tremendous and between her attitude & her physical appearance, no wonder she weaves a spell on so many men... who are incredibly dumb lunkheads I did not have much sympathy for. This includes John Wayne in a small supporting part. The ending I saw was less sentimental and less judgmental than what was seen by most audiences

Baby Face is a tawdry tale which was made pretty well by Warner Brothers and the cast as a whole was fine; as already stated by me, it was Stanwyck's show and she delivered. Before this I had only seen her in Double Indemnity, where she was also great. One task will be to see more of her work; another is to view 1932's Red-Headed Woman, starring Jean Harlow and said to be the biggest inspiration for Baby Face. Apparently, that is rather savage in its own way; I am sure it is rather piquant considering Jean Harlow played the title character. For me, those are indications that Pre-Code films are something I can go down the rabbit hole with... and probably have an enriching experience while doing so.