Baby Face

The National Gallery of Art showed the long-thought lost original uncut version of this film on July 10, 2005. It restores vital scenes cut by censors upon its release. The character of the cobbler, a moral goody-goody individual in the original censored release of 1933 is here presented as a follower of the philosopher Nietsze and urges her to use men to claw her way to the top. Also, the corny ending of the original which I assume is in current VHS versions is eliminated and the ending is restored to its original form. A wonderful film of seduction and power. Hopefully, there will a reissue of this film on DVD for all to appreciate its great qualities. Look for it.

Arriving by boxcar in New York City, the shrewd young woman with the BABY FACE begins to methodically canoodle her way to the top floors of power in a great bank.

Barbara Stanwyck is fascinating as the amoral heroine of this influential pre-Code drama. Without a shred of decency or regret, she coolly manipulates the removal or destruction of the men unlucky enough to find themselves in her way. A wonderful actress, Stanwyck has full opportunity here to display her ample talents.

Appearing quite late in the story, George Brent is a welcome addition as the one fellow possibly able to handle Stanwyck; his sophisticated style of acting makes a nice counterpoint to her icy demeanor. Douglas Dumbrille, Donald Cook & Henry Kolker portray a succession of her unfortunate victims.

John Wayne appears for just a few scant seconds as an unsuccessful suitor for Stanwyck's affections. This would be the only time these two performers appeared together on screen.

Movie mavens should recognize Nat Pendleton as a speakeasy customer, and Charles Sellon & Edward Van Sloan as bank executives - all unbilled.

The music heard on the soundtrack throughout the film, perfectly punctuating the plot, is ‘Baby Face' (1926) by Benny Davis & Harry Akst and ‘St. Louis Blues' (1914) by W.C. Handy.

BABY FACE is a prime example of pre-Code naughtiness. In its frank & unapologetic dealing with sex, it is precisely the kind of film which the implementation of the Production Code in 1934 was meant to eliminate.

An original uncensored print of this amazing film was discovered in 2004 in the Library of Congress, and has been shown in a few specialized theaters around the world in 2005. According to current reviews that I've found online, the original has all of the nastiest dialog and innuendos intact; they were later either removed or completely re-shot by the studio prior to initial release, in order to pass the New York state censors. I have also read that a DVD is "expected in 2006" and one can only hope! If we're really luckily, it will include comparisons between the 2 versions. Note that the released censored version was originally available on Laserdisc, which I have seen. Stanwyck rules!

There have been written so many things about "Baby Face", being the probably MOST daring and explicitly sexual movie before the enforcement of the Hays Code - in fact, one of the main REASONS for its rigorous enforcement - that every fan of classic films, even if he hasn't actually seen it, knows pretty well what it's all about. A girl who's been 'working' in her father's dubious 'establishment', 'entertaining' men ever since she was 14, and after her father's death escaping to New York and REALLY climbing up the ladder; 'wrong by wrong', as the ads for the movie promised the scandal-hungry audience of the time...

Although this movie should be regarded exclusively in itself, there is ONE comparison that inevitably comes to mind - to the OTHER great pre-Code movie that had been released just two months before "Baby Face", and constituted the other half of the gravestone that Will Hays would soon put on this kind of 'unacceptably immoral' movies: Mae West's "I'm No Angel"... In fact, the philosophy of the two starring ladies is just about the same; only that Mae expressed it in her own, casual way of 'Find 'em, fool 'em, and forget 'em', while Barbara goes by the philosophical advice of none other than Nietzsche: 'Face life as you find it - defiantly and unafraid. Waste no energy yearning for the moon. Crush out all sentiment.' And so she does - she uses her female assets to make a VERY quick career at a big bank, making it to the 'executive suite' in literally no time; she uses the way that Mae West had suggested in words and humorous double-entendres, but VERY explicitly and unequivocally for the whole audience. And she gives a MAGNIFICENT performance (maybe the best one of her whole, great career) as the tough gal determined to do EVERYTHING in order to reach the 'top' - and yet, just when she thinks she's got everything she wanted (everything measurable in dollars, jewels and fur coats, that is), her sentiment, that she'd been trying so hard to crush, sets in, and her 'success story' becomes a drama...

And that's exactly the difference between "Baby Face" and "I'm No Angel": Mae West, as always, takes even her most spicy adventures with humor, always staying on top of things and getting what she wants; while Barbara Stanwyck is forced by the circumstances almost from the beginning of her life to become a 'bad girl' - and that was obviously a TOO much realistic view of things for the Hays Office: while "I'm No Angel" finally got its seal, "Baby Face" was withdrawn from release and edited until it was 'fit' for distribution. But it was still HIGHLY explosive stuff, and soon afterwards the final curtain came down on those daring, 'outrageous' pre-Code movies in the shape of Will Hays' 'Bible' called the Production Code, which would from now on be rigorously applied to EVERY movie before it would be granted a seal.

So enjoy "Baby Face" as one of the most audacious pre-Code films - and as one of the VERY best movies of classic Hollywood in general, featuring one of the GREATEST performances of one of the GREATEST actresses of all times!

BABY FACE (Warner Brothers, 1933), directed by Alfred E. Green, stars the young and forceful Barbara Stanwyck in a "pre-code" drama that has gathered a "bad" reputation in its initial release, only to become a cult favorite decades later, thanks to frequent revivals on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel. A hot item it its day, the initial 45 minutes of BABY FACE is hard-hitting and fast-pace, with intentional or unintentional funny lines combined. Only after the arrival of co-star George Brent does the story begin to lose steam. Only when it begins to recover some strength during its concluding minutes, the film fails to recapture whatever essence it had during the initial three quarters of an hour.

The focal point is on Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck), the sassy daughter of Nick (Robert Barrat), an abusive father of the slums of Pittsburgh who has her working as a barmaid in his speakeasy entertaining low-life factory working friends. After Nick is killed in an explosion, by which Lily watches, showing no remorse or emotion whatsoever, decides on leaving her hometown, accompanied by her friend, Chico (Theresa Haris) on a freight train for New York City. Upon her arrival, Lily uses whatever life has taught her to get ahead, rising up the corporate latter of a banking firm, by showing her feminine wiles to full advantage. Becoming responsible for the breakup between banker, Ned Stevens (Donald Cook) and his fiancée, Ann Carter (Margaret Lindsay), followed by a murder/suicide, the notorious scandal finds Lily about to transferred to the Paris branch until she captures the attention of Trenholm (George Brent), the new president of the Botham Trust Company, as her latest victim.

Featured in the supporting cast are Douglass Dumbrille (Brody, another one of Lily's "love slaves"); Nat Pendleton (Stolvich, a sleazy factory worker); Maynard Holmes (a personnel office clerk); with Alphonse Ethier, Henry Kolker and Charles Coleman in smaller roles. Along with Dumbrille, Cook and Kolker as men who fall prey to a gal called Lily, the biggest surprise is finding the youthful John Wayne, years prior to his major star status, as one of Lily's rejected suitors. Wayne's role as an office clerk is brief but noteworthy as being the one and only collaboration of the "Duke" and "Stanny." James Murray, the leading actor in MGM's silent masterpiece, THE CROWD (1928), in a career setback by this time, appeared briefly as a railroad brakeman. His scene, however, was taken out prior to its release. A director's complete cut that included Murray and other edited scenes were later discovered and presented on TCM for the first time December 4, 2006.

A dress rehearsal for some of her latter tough-as-nails dramas as DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944) and THE STRANGE LOVES OF MARTHA IVERS (Paramount, 1946), for example, Stanwyck plays Lily Powers to the hilt, a strong-willed woman with a lot of hate, especially towards men. When pitting them to their own destruction, her eyes stay motionless, detailing reactions through silence rather than with words. Regardless of movie title and popular song by Benny Davis and Harry Akst (scored during the opening credits) that could have served as a Broadway musical about a cute chorus girl, Stanwyck, hardly a "baby face" by any means, is referred to as such once by Jimmy McCoy (John Wayne) and office secretaries (one played by Toby Wing), but never referred to that name again. Aside from other songs, "I Kiss Your Hand, Madame" is underscored several times during the latter portion of the story.

A forerunner to the "trash" movies of the 1960s and 70s, what makes BABY FACE so watchable is the explicit way it uses sex and immorality out of camera range, leaving questionable situations to the imagination of the viewer. A prime example is witnessing Lily's job promotion up the corporate latter with the camera panning from the outside office window from personnel, filing, mortgage and accounting departments to the underscoring of burlesque-type music.

Could anyone else but Barbara Stanwyck handle such an assignment as depicted in BABY FACE? Joan Blondell, another resident Warner Brothers stock player, perhaps, considering how Stanwyck's blonde hairstyle bears a strong resemblance to Blondell's, especially during the more glamorized moments in the film's second half. Blondell, might have handled her task well, but the major difference is that Blondell, as good as she is, or was, wouldn't have handled the forcefulness the way Stanwyck had. Stanwyck, a brunette, was at her best playing nasty blondes, especially here and a decade later in DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944).

Aside from BABY FACE as one of the favorites shown on TCM, it did have some exposure during the early 1990s on Turner Network Television (TNT) and distribution to home video as part of Leonard Maltin's "Forbidden Hollywood" series, and finally on DVD. For a worthwhile introductory to "pre-code" movies, either the complete or theatrical edited release of BABY FACE, along with Stanwyck's earlier NIGHT NURSE (1931), should be tops in the assembly line. (**1/2)