"Baby Face" is a precode melodrama starring a very young Barbara Stanwyck, an almost unrecognizable George Brent, and Theresa Harris. It's about a girl who goes to the city to make good...or should I say make time. Stanwyck's father has been pimping her for one reason or another her whole life in dingy, depressed, filthy Erie, Pennsylvania. After her father dies, one older father type who knows what she's been through and truly cares about her future advises her to go to the big city and take advantage of opportunities there - and not the easy ones - and to take the high road in life. (Note that I saw the censored version and not the uncut - this part of the film was redone for the censors.) She and Chico (Harris) go to New York where Lily (nickname: Baby Face) decides the low road's a lot smoother and will get her where she wants to go a lot faster. In the movie's most famous scene, the camera moves us up the corporate ladder by taking us from floor to floor as Lily sleeps her way to the top. She finally corrals the big man himself and is able to quit her day job. Trouble follows, and she's soon involved in a huge scandal.

Stanwyck wears lots of makeup and for most of the film is cool as a cucumber as she seduces one man after another with no regrets, and she's great at playing the innocent victim. In one scene, she sits staring at a king's ransom in jewels while wearing a black dress that looks like it's decorated with diamonds at the top. Then she asks Chico for another case, and that's filled with more jewelry, plus securities. All in a day's work.

Theresa Harris was an interesting talent - she could be played down or glamorous, and was a talented singer and dancer as well. Here, she sings or hums the movie's theme, "St. Louis Woman" throughout. She worked in literally dozens of movies and is very good here as a friend of Stanwyck's, her best work being in the precode era. As a bizarre byproduct of the code, blacks were often given less to do in films after it was put in place.

Precode films could be more sexually blatant and therefore, though they're 70+ years old, seem more modern. Even though these films didn't have to have moral endings, Baby Face learns her lessons - how like life it is after all. There were several endings of this film, all with the same message. The one I saw had an added scene, but apparently, there were two other endings that didn't pass the censors. (There wasn't a code but there were always censors.) At any rate, it's a neat surprise. "Baby Face" is an important film in movie history - a must see.

Finally, the uncut version of "Baby Face" surfaces and from what source? The Library of Congress. The restored four minutes, snippets here and there, make for a much better film. We now know that Baby Face was pimped by her old man from the time she was at least fourteen years of age. Another reason d'tat for her behavior and cold, calculating exterior.

Barbara Stanwyck is indeed amazing in the role of Lily Powers (notice the moniker), a part that called for just the right amount of sexuality coated with power, cunning, and revenge, yet tinged with virginal pretense when called for, a very difficult portrayal to make convincing. Barbara Stanwyck conveys the necessary nuances to show that though she sleeps her way to the top (literally), she still has good in her heart--note the way she treats those few who have been kind to her such as Chico (the marvelous actress Theresa Harris) and the old philosopher. And though she exploits her sexuality to make mush of men who are rich and powerful, those same men are attempting to exploit her for their carnal desires with no intention of permanent ties until they fall in love with her.

Lily Powers fails to understand, at first, that emotions are difficult to ride, that it's easy to lose control. One possible result is death. Hitching a wagon to a star of course materialism can take one to a destination where nothing else exists but the ephemeral, and it's a cold lonely location.

A word should be said about the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche whose will to power is stressed in "Baby Face" by the elderly philosopher who befriends Lilly when she is still turning tricks for her old man. "Baby Face" was released the same year Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Though it's highly unlikely that the semi-literate Hitler understood much about Nietzsche, he considered himself a Nietzschean to the nth degree and touted it along side his other rantings. "Baby Face" serves as an indictment of the popular interpretation of Nietzsche's will to power concept, especially in the final scenes.

Although "You've got the cutest little baby face." is apropos as a theme for "Baby Face," an even more telling and applicable melody is W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" played throughout the film, especially at times when the camera has to drift away from what would otherwise be sexually explicit scenes. "St. Louis Blues" is also used wisely toward the end as Lily begins to see beyond materialism to eternal values. Chico is singing a raw, salacious version of "St. Louis Blues" when Lily, now disagreeing with the lyrics, orders her to stop.

The restored version of "Baby Face" makes the film more modern in its approach and attitude toward sex as power than many a new Hollywood release. By all means watch this gem from the distant past and enjoy.

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.

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)

This one is considered a key Pre-Code film – from the director who later made the musical biopic THE JOLSON STORY (1946), but also the paranoid sci-fi INVASION U.S.A. (1952)! – and features one of Barbara Stanwyck's best early roles.

She's supported by a fine cast which includes popular actors and valued character performers of the day – George Brent, Douglass Dumbrille, Edward van Sloan, Nat Pendleton and John Wayne (at one point addressing Stanwyck with the titular nickname, derived from a popular song which is heard constantly throughout) in the former category and, in the latter, Robert Barrat (as Stanwyck's father), Donald Cook (as her most tragic conquest), Alphonse Ethier (as her elderly mentor – more on this later), Arthur Hohl (as a lecherous politician) and Henry Kolker (as Cook's boss and father-in-law, whom Stanwyck also seduces). Curiously, scenes in which Walter Brennan appeared were subsequently deleted at his own request when the film ran into trouble with the censors!

Abetted by crackling i.e. typically hard-boiled dialogue and realistic Anton Grot sets, the narrative contains unexpected overtones of Nietzschean philosophy fed to our small-town heroine by the intellectual Ethier (Stanwyck complains to him early on that she's no "ball of fire" which, of course, contradicts her later comedy – directed by Howard Hawks and co-starring Gary Cooper – of that name!). Under Ethier's auspices, she quickly blooms into an essentially heartless character determined that nothing shall stand in her path to success; the symbolic depiction of her rise in stature at the New York firm she's eventually employed with is reminiscent of a similarly sardonic one – relating to an ambitious statesman's lust for power – in Sergei Eisenstein's October (1927)! Sociologically, it's also interesting that Stanwyck is constantly seen sticking her neck out for her black maid/companion.

The first two-thirds of the film are simply terrific; at first, I found the latter stages somewhat disappointing – because I was expecting to see Stanwyck get her comeuppance by falling for the belatedly-introduced George Brent character while he ignores her…but, just like the others, he's soon under her spell! On second viewing, however, this aspect felt less jarring – as it's evident that Stanwyck has been affected by the two deaths her selfish behavior has caused, and that her tenure in Paris has softened her (even if she tries to cling to her hard-earned wealth for as long as it's possible).

Released on DVD by Warners as part of their FORBIDDEN Hollywood VOLUME 1 COLLECTION, the film is presented in two strikingly different edits – a recently unearthed Pre-Release version and the tamer Theatrical Release print. Among the considerable footage cut from the latter is dialogue pertaining to Stanwyck's life as a tramp from the age of 14 (though it's heard in the accompanying trailer!), while many other scenes have been shortened (i.e. censored for content): the violent fisticuff which develops between Stanwyck and Hohl after she resists his advances; the seduction at the railroad car; the scene in which Dumbrille is surprised with Stanwyck by Cook; the shooting, followed by a suicide (only shots are heard in the shorter version); Stanwyck thinking about her conquests while the phonograph is playing (again, only Brent appears in the version released to theaters), etc. Tha latter, then, utilizes alternate takes for some scenes – and includes an establishing shot of the city which is missing from the longer version; however, we also get an obviously tacked-on happy ending (the Pre-Release version concludes abruptly on a very effective open-ended note) and an equally unconvincing cautionary letter sent by Ethier to Stanwyck in New York which, basically, has the function of substituting all references to Nietzsche!

Barbara Stanwyck as a real tough cookie, a waitress to the working classes (and prostitute at the hands of her father) who escapes to New York City and uses her feminine wiles to get a filing job, moving on to Mortgage and Escrow, and later as assistant secretary to the second in command at the bank. Dramatic study of a female character unafraid to be unseemly has lost none of its power over the years, with Barbara acting up a storm (portraying a woman who learns to be a first-rate actress herself). Parlaying a little Nietzschean philosophy into her messed up life, this lady crushes out sentiment all right, but she never loses our fascination, our awe. She's a plain-spoken, hard-boiled broad, but she's not a bitch, nor is she a man-eater or woman-hater. This gal is all out for herself, and as we wait for her to eventually learn about real values in life, her journey up and down the ladder of success provides heated, sexy entertainment. John Wayne (with thick black hair and too much eye make-up) does well in an early role as the assistant in the file office, though all the supporting players are quite good. *** from ****

Contrary to MGM, Warner's films had little to do with the glitz and glamour of the era and a lot to do with the decay and corruption and the little people that was the norm in the early Depression years, and before the Code came and basically threw most creativity out the window, many of the females were strong, gritty, tough-as-nails vixens who exuded an earthy sexuality and lots of brains to keep themselves afloat in what was a men's world.

Barbara Stanwyck, no stranger to strong roles, was one of them, and here she plays an openly amoral woman, Lily Powers, who is practically being pimped by her own father in a sleazy speakeasy. Once it burns to the ground, she and her maid Chico (Theresa Harria who has quite a lot of screen time at almost a co-starring level), take to New York City and it's not long before Stanwyck is essentially climbing the ladder man by man when she gets a job in a bank, among them a young John Wayne in a brief appearance, casually breaking their hearts until she basically has reached the top but eventually pays for it when a crime of passion takes place in her posh flat and she has to flee to Paris. A tacked-on romance between Stanwyck and George Brent and a moment when she (sort of) comes to terms with her dog-eat-dog attitude, mainly caused by the dawn of the Code era and censors who were outraged brings this film to a happy conclusion as she goes back to her home town.

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!

This is a very good movie. Unusual for its day, due to the overt sex and plot. It also has a black playing a major role that is not a typical maid or servant, but more of a wise cracking best friend. Barbara Stanwyck, who I never considered very attractive, is quite stunning in a trampish sort of way. You will recognize a very young John Wayne as one of her boy friends, as well as many other character actors and actresses of the day. The woman playing the black girl, is new to me, she has a nice voice, as she sings a few jazz tunes of the era, I wonder what happened to her. This movie was before the Hays Code of Decency and it shows. I highly recommended this movie.

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.

No sense going over the story since enough reviewers have done that. Here's a few different slants on it from one of those "religious nuts," as one bigoted reviewer puts it so tolerantly.

1) "Baby Face" (1933) offers perhaps THE classic example ever put on film of how women can manipulate men with sex. There is a lot of truth to what Barbara Stanwyck demonstrates in this film: look cute, bat your eyelashes, offer your body for free.....and men will fall over themselves to help you out with whatever you want.

In this case, it was job advancement with the ultimate goal of money.....lots of it. At least four men in this film do provide just that, even if it ruins their lives in the process.

2) The ending - which many of the reviewers here seemed to hate - gives another great message: all the money and material goods in the world won't make a person feel fulfilled. A sad comment that so many "critics" here would rather have immoral messages, preferring sleaze over substance. No surprise, I guess.

Any way you look at it, the movie is entertaining start-to-finish and Stanwyck has some great lines, particularly in the beginning when she tells off her crude father and his unruly bar customers. At a little over 70 minutes, this film moves at a fast pace and is over before you know it.

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!

On the Forbidden Hollywood DVD, both versions of the film are delightfully on the same disc, making it easy to compare them. I watched the uncensored, uncut pre-release version first, then the theatrical release to see what they had cut. Holy cow! A lot! To my surprise they not only cut, they revised. The revisions really change the tone and character motivations. If you've only ever seen the theatrical release then you must see the uncensored version, if only to find out three things 1. That the kindly old man who gives her earnest advice...is not the guy you thought he was. Almost all of his dialogue was cut or redubbed to make him a "moral voice of reason" in the theatrical release. The scene where he sends her a chastising letter was a revision. Get a load of what he actually tells her, and what he actually sends her! Let me put it this way, he's a much bigger influence on her behavior than the theatrical release led one to believe. 2. The boxcar scene. Which was cut in it's entirety from the theatrical release. It raised my 2010 eyebrows! Finally, 3. The ending when she's listening to her phonograph in the stateroom. Here I'll be specific because this was a change that irritated me. In the theatrical release, she's listening to the record and we see that she's thinking about her husband, and then she dashes off to find him. In the pre-release version she's listening to the record and she's thinking about ALL of the men who she's been involved with over the course of the movie that got her to where she is, finally ending with her husband and a voice-over of him telling her that he knows she's been with a lot of men, but he doesn't care, he loves her and is determined to make her love him. Then she dashes off to find him. Honestly that makes a big difference! You know she goes back to him because he's the one guy who accepts her for who she is. In the theatrical version she's just suddenly developed random affection for him, no reason. So if you can, watch the uncensored, uncut version. It's absolutely worth your time!

I hand't seen the restored, or any version for that matter, of "Baby Face" with Barbara Stanwyck till I caught it on TCM. What a great movie! In a nutshell Lily lives in a speakeasy, she's been pimped out by her own Father since she was 14! Then his still blows up and he's killed leaving Lily (Stanwyck) alone cept for her black maid Chico, played very nicely by Theresa Harris. Lily leaves for the big city ( New York) deciding to use her sex to get to the top. She does this in great style!

She seduces a pudgy clerk to get in on the ground floor and proceeds to go through men like disposable candy! One dumps his fiancée and kills his near father-in-law, also Lily's sugar-daddy, then commits suicide! Lily barely blinks! STanwyck is terrific as a girl who really doesn't know what love is.

Then in Paris, she falls for Courtland, played by George Brent, they marry, but when he's in deep financial straights, she bolts. Nearly free with Chico and a half-million, she realizes she loved Court! Lily races to find him, but will she be too late?

This is pre-code Hollywood at its best. Stanwyck is tremendous and the look and music in the film are perfect. This reminded me of "Original Sin" with Angelina Jolie, another unfairly ignored flick with an amoral woman, those who disliked that films ultra-romantic leanings, will not like Baby FAce any better, those with belief in sex, love and power, will love it. Highly recommended! See it!

To see a pre-code film like this is to have bawdiness thrown into your face, and have all your pre-conceived notions of the propriety of early Hollywood upended. Baby Face was Warner Bros' attempt to one-up MGM's Red-Headed Woman from the previous year, and both films would contribute to the hastening of the Production Code. Jean Harlow flaunted her infidelity and sexuality at every turn, openly declaring her trashy beauty with see-through dresses and a sexual thrill at being struck, but Barbara Stanwyck only needed a light caress and one look to bring men to their knees. Vice Presidents, aides and bosses walked into the room all thinking to set her straight, yet she has other ideas, and sends them on their way dazed. It is one of Stanwyck's most electric roles, made of smothering closeups and dialogue not merely laced but stinking of suggestion, and it points to her scene-stealing allure no matter the colour or style of her hair. In one particularly intoxicating scene in The Lady Eve, she lies in the lap of Henry Fonda, donning that dark, half-cut dress, and turns a screen icon into putty in her hands.

The wardrobe in Baby Face similarly marks her rise from the ashes. Beginning with small-town rags and a reputation for being the town prostitute (she's slept with more men at the film's opening than in Lilian's entire crusade), she emerges from the flames of a fateful fire determined to make a name for herself. Soon she has lacy dresses of all sorts, dons frilly manes and scarfs of ridiculous proportions, and at one point, seems to have fat, furry ferret wrapped around her neck and back (it's a heavy and cumbersome thing). How has she afforded these costumes? Green never shows her truly working, but in an audacious sexual metaphor, utilises a craning shot that gradually rises from the lowly filing department all the way up to executive offices. She is sleeping her way up the corporate ladder.

It was wildly progressive in other ways too. Theresa Harris plays Chico, Lily's quiet, unassuming black maid, one of the last times we would see such subtlety before the mammy character took hold. Chico remains a loyal companion throughout, gaining some frilly additions to her dress as well - Lily's insistence that Chico stay by her side while others stared uncomfortably is perhaps the single streak of goodness left in her as she ascends to the top and falls from grace.

Yet even before the code censorship boards were still demanding redemption for villains such as Lily Powers, if only eventually. Comeuppance wasn't enough, she had to be beaten into submission, have sentiment reintroduced into her, and so the original script's ending of Lily ending up slaving away in a steel mill was scrapped for the romantic realisation in the ambulance. Only then could it be screened to the public; a hour of debauchery and immorality, only for the conclusion to assert the overpowering values of true love and modesty. Rediscovered in 2004 and restored to its full corruptive allure, the uncut version of Baby Face allows some insight into its intended version. Gone was a man's first consuming gaze of Stanwyck, the camera moving over her long legs, and then only reluctantly up towards her face. Audience did see that same man's shockingly forward approach in propositioning her, first by stroking her on the knee, and then coming up from behind to snatch at her breasts. What they missed was the fiery Stanwyck giving as good as she got: pouring hot coffee over the guilty hand, and then later smashing a bottle over the man's head. They wouldn't see anything as daring as that from a woman for a while afterwards.

In my opinion this has to be one of Barbara Stanwyck's best performances. She was one of only a handful of actors, then and now, who could say more with a single look than an entire page of dialogue. And I was lucky enough to see the original and uncensored movie, with the extra 4 minutes of additional footage. Too bad the movie is so short. Lily is a young woman barely holding it together working for her father in his illegal speakeasy. Her only link to anything is her good friend, Chico, played wonderfully by Theresa Harris. Though Chico is African American (and having a white woman be best friends with a black woman back in the 30s was as controversial as the subject matter of this movie), and Lily is not, they have a special bond. And it is not sexual. Just 2 women stuck, or shoved, into a situation beyond their control. After Lily's father dies, and she does not know what she will do, she is told that she has the power to get out and to get what she wants. Yes, it's immoral, but that's the entire point of this movie. Then "they" had to go and ruin the last few minutes. So, up until the last few minutes of the movie, it's a superb film and worth watching. The "lesson" of the movie is still as valid today as it was back then, and I'm sure will be a 100 years from now. Women, it's awful what Lily does in order to get what she wants, but it works. Men, take note.

During 1933 this film had many cuts taken from it because it was very over the top for the story content and the fact that Lily Powers,(Barbara Stanwyck) would do anything to obtain great wealth and power. Lily's father had forced his daughter into prostitution at the age of 14 and she grew up in a steel mill of a town with very poor people and her father ran a speakeasy which brought into his home all kinds of male characters who had their eye on Lily. As the story progresses, Lily meets up with man after man and eventually finds a guy who has everything and is a playboy bank president It is great to see a very young John Wayne, (Jimmy McCoy Jr.) who was only 25 when this picture was produced and Jimmy did not even get to first base with Lily, not even for lunch. A very young George Brent, (Coutland Trenholm) stars along with Barbara Stanwyck and both gave outstanding performances. This is a great film from 1933 which was produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and was locked up in a fault for many years and just recently is being shown on the silver screen. This film is rather mild compared to what we view on the Hollywood screens today, but in 1933 it was very naughty to watch this type of film. Enjoy

The pre-release version of 1933's "Baby Face" would make an ideal introduction to a corporate seminar on sexual harassment. Mentored by a Nietszchean professor, Lily Powers rises from a life of easy virtue at her father's speakeasy to a rapid climb up the corporate ladder at a large bank. Because each rung of the ladder is an executive with his brain below his belt and his ethics locked in the vault, the film has no victims, except Lily's childhood, which was destroyed by an abusive exploitative father. The destructive relationship with her father suggests Lily's hidden motive for using men to advance without regard for their fate. While Lily is cynical and obvious in her approach, the men she targets willingly betray wives and fiancés to trade jobs for sexual favors. Perhaps the bank failures in the 1930's owed less to economics than to morally corrupt executives distracted by ambitious women.

The plot moves fast, and the camera amusingly moves from window to window up the façade of the office building as Lily climbs ever higher. Barbara Stanwyck reveled in tough hard-bitten roles, and she is in top form here. Sentiment does not intrude when she is ready to climb the next rung. Only her African-American confidante, Chico, receives Lily's affection, trust, and loyalty. In more enlightened times, the fresh natural beauty of Theresa Harris, who plays Chico, would have had the men throwing the furs and penthouses at her. Stanwyck often appears overly made-up and stiffly coiffed in comparison to Harris. However, despite Stanwyck's tough demeanor, obvious tactics, and artificial visage, she manages to leave a trail of duped and seduced men, including Douglass Dumbrille, Donald Cook, and a young John Wayne.

The preferred version of "Baby Face" is the 76-minute restored cut. The edited release version of the film shyly turns from the hard facts, which the longer cut restores and makes explicit. Perhaps Darryl Zanuck, who wrote the story under an assumed name, intended a lesson by quoting from Nietszche, whose views on women were controversial. However, despite Alphonse Ethier's lectures and advice not to be defeated by life, Lily's grab for power and money likely owed more to her upbringing and her father than to her professorial mentor. However, the philosophy is but a distraction. Short, fast paced, and entertaining, "Baby Face" is as contemporary in its morality as "Wall Street." Substitute Gordon Gecko for Nietszche, and Lily could have declared her guiding philosophy to be "greed is good."

Watching the 'director's cut' of Baby Face tonight left me a tad disappointed. I could certainly see why it got the attention of the blue noses back in the day. Stuff like child sex abuse simply was not talked about on the screen. You would have to wait over 40 years before you would have a parent be shown blatantly exploiting their child's adolescent sexuality as Robert Barrat does with Barbara Stanwyck.

But it certainly does explain why Barbara in this film views men as just steps up the ladder of success. She even traded sexual favors to get transportation in a boxcar on a freight train to New York.

Once there she lands a job in a bank and goes up the chain of command with a triple objective in mind, wealth, independence, and security. She starts with teller John Wayne and ends up with the new president George Brent.

Of course one of the reasons that this film is also now preserved is because it's the one joint appearance of John Wayne and Barbara Stanwyck. Wayne was at Warner Brothers at this time doing some B westerns with his wonder horse Duke{I kid you not}, but occasionally took supporting roles in other films, unusual in itself to see Wayne not the principal in any film. Later on Barbara Stanwyck confessed she would have like to have co-starred with him. Certainly their politics would have been compatible.

Barbara's availability and her way of exploiting it causes the death of two men and nearly the death of Brent. Yet I have to say it was a cop out ending for this hardhearted woman to all of a sudden discover true love in the last reel and give it all back in an effort to save Brent. That ending was in keeping with the Code even if how she got there became part of forbidden Hollywood.

One thing that Baby Face does have that is unusual is the role of the black maid, Therese Harris who is by no means servile. She leaves with Stanwyck after Barrat dies and she really is the only confidante she has. Her singing of W.C. Handy's St. Louis Woman comes up at some of the most opportune and inopportune moments in the film.

I'd have much preferred Barbara keep all her gotten gains it would have been in keeping with the spirit of the film. Still Baby Face should be seen, it's quite bold for its times.

The first time I saw this movie, I saw the version that had been released theatrically. I read that it had been severely edited, but what remained was enough for it to become one of my favorite movies. When a copy of the original version was found, the movie that I had already rated a 10 became even better.

The original version was modified in three ways. The first form of editing is the sort we usually expect: scenes are cut out. In one scene, after Lily decides she is through turning tricks for her father/pimp, she wrestles with a politician who has paid for her services. In the original version, he refers to her as "the sweetheart of the nightshift," but the part about the nightshift is snipped out for the theatrical version. In the original version, she thinks she is rid of him and pours herself a beer. When he grabs her from behind and puts his hand on one of her breasts, she hits him over the head with a beer bottle, and then nonchalantly returns to her beer. That was cut out for the theatrical version. And then there is the scene that takes place when Lily and Chico hop a freight to get to New York. A guard threatens to throw them off, but Lily has sex with him in exchange for letting them stay aboard. That was eliminated in the theatrical version. There are many other bits and pieces edited out, too numerous to mention. In general, what we easily suspect or infer of a sexual nature in the theatrical version was made a little more explicit in the original.

The second form of editing consists of added scenes that were never filmed originally. In the original version, Lily rides in the ambulance with her husband after his attempted suicide. Even though they will have to spend all the money they have to keep him from being convicted for malversation, they look at each other fondly, knowing that even without that money they will live happily together, at which point the movie ends. In the theatrical version, the part where they look at each other with love in their eyes is edited out. What follows is a scene in which Lily is punished by having her return to Pittsburg where she started, with her husband going to work as a laborer in a steel mill, forcing her to live amongst the lowlifes she wanted to get away from.

The third form of editing was that of changing the words of Cragg, the German cobbler who is Lily's mentor. In the first scene in which Cragg and Lily are together, in the speakeasy her father owns, he asks her if she read the book he lent her. In the original version, we find out that the book was written by Nietzsche, who Cragg says is the greatest philosopher that ever lived. In the theatrical version, that line is suppressed, so we don't know who wrote the book.

After her father dies, she visits Cragg at his shop. He tells her she must leave the town they are in or she is lost, that with her youth and looks she has power over men, that she can be a master, not a slave. In the original version, he quotes from "The Will to Power," in which Nietzsche says that no matter how we idealize it, life is nothing but exploitation.* He tells her to exploit herself, to use men to get the things she wants. In the theatrical version, however, we do not see the title of the book or get the quote from Nietzsche. Cragg's remarks about Lily's exploiting herself and using men are removed and are replaced by something quite different: he tells her to be clean and to remember the difference between right and wrong.

Along the lines of suppressing Nietzsche and modifying Cragg's advice, the other forms of editing are also used. In the original version, Lily comes home to her swanky apartment in New York to find that Cragg has sent her another book by Nietzsche, "Thoughts Out of Season." She turns to a passage emphasized by Cragg in which Nietzsche says that to get what you want, you must "crush all sentiment."** In the theatrical version, we do not get to see the title of the book or its author. Inside the book is a letter from Cragg telling her she has picked the wrong way, that life will defeat her unless she regains her self-respect. And just to give Cragg's advice the proper religious tone, the closing just above his name says, "Merry Christmas."

As noted above, I saw the theatrical version first. I had read that a lot of the Nietzsche stuff had been suppressed. Nevertheless, I wasn't surprised by what I saw. Apologists for Nietzsche are often at pains to say that he has been misunderstood. The movie "Rope" (1948) is a good example. In that movie, a college professor half-seriously talks about the superman who is so superior he has the right to eliminate those who are inferior. When a couple of his students decide to eliminate an inferior acquaintance by murdering him, the professor is appalled that they misunderstood what he was saying. So I figured "Baby Face" was in that tradition. The fact that in the original version Lily did not misunderstand Nietzsche as explained to her by Cragg makes this modification the most radical way in which the movie had been edited for theatrical release.

*Although this has the flavor of Nietzsche, I have not been able to find that quotation in "The Will to Power."

**As with the other quotation, I have not been able to find this one in "Thoughts Out of Season."

Despite the cutesy title and the chipper music, this is definitely not your Frank Capra -- Columbia Studios Barbara Stanwyck.

This is Warner Bros. Pictures, the juvenile delinquents of Hollywood. They were the rebels who broke the rules, and liked to make pictures about rebels breaking the rules, such as "Rebel Without a Cause." This is an early example of the studio's inclination to film noir, seen later in Humphrey Bogart films like "The Maltese Falcon."

In "Baby Face," Warner Bros. breaks every rule in the book with abandon, and even a sort of glee that must have driven the religious conservatives of the day into a frenzy. Not the pretend, hypocritical outrage you get today, but a face turning red, temple pounding outrage.

How else would you describe a movie where a woman sleeps with her boss and gets promoted, higher and higher, and even drives her filthy rich lovers to a murder suicide, and still gets rewarded with even more riches? Try "outrageous." Try adding up how many men Lily slept with. Better yet, is there anyone she didn't sleep with?

While it is all too easy to blame Stanwyck's character, Lily Powers, it should be kept in mind that it was the men who were using her, or at least thought they were. But Lily was the more successful at the exploitation game. It was the men who were self-deluded into thinking they were in love. They were all fools in the hands of Lily, though some were richer and more sophisticated fools. (Seduction, by the way, was not what Nietzsche's philosophy was primarily about, though he was interested in the many permutations of the will, and the quest for power, including self-mastery.)

In the Christian universe, he or she who commits sin will be punished by God. But not in this movie, which created a problem for Christians, who sometimes have trouble distinguishing film from reality. So "Baby Face" was censored, some scenes deleted, and a moral ending added. Actually, I think it is a good, fitting ending. But the truth is, in the real world there are plenty of women who take the money and run. And they are not struck by lightning. Some even become celebrities.

I can see how some viewers might miss the significance of this movie. It took me more than one viewing over the years to fully appreciate how radical it is. For young people, I suppose this looks tame. For someone who is older, and used to seeing old black and white movies, they also might take it for granted, probably having seen it on late night television years before.

If you just view "Baby Face" casually, the relative crude 1933 technical limitations on quality, some stiff male acting, and odd makeup on some of the men that looks like it is out of the silent era might fool you into thinking it is a B movie. It is anything but. Stanwyck's acting is superb. This is a classic.

Speaking of awkward actors, look for a young John Wayne with strange makeup get the brush off from Stanwyck, who, I imagine, wouldn't even give the time of day to Wayne off the set, too. He was a bit player who made 11 movies in 1933. Yet he still got billing above Theresa Harris.

Harris, who plays Stanwyck's black friend and maid, never does the mammy routine, which must have driven the conservatives nuts in 1933. But, then, this was Warner Bros. Sadly, looking at her credits, she played a lot of maids over the years, including a fine performance in "Miracle on 34th Street," but at least here she gets to do it with class, and even gets to do some fine singing.

This being The Great Depression, some film studios were on the ropes, financially. It is well known that Capra's "It Happened One Night" saved Columbia Studios from possible bankruptcy. I have read that Warner Bros. also was having troubles in 1933. They may have been looking for a blockbuster in "Baby Face."

I imagine "Baby Face" must have gotten people talking, and probably provided the studio with a lot of free publicity. During the Great Depression many women must have related to Lily, the way they were often exploited by men, and the temptation to exploit them back for all it was worth.

I pulled up the original review in the New York Times, and it avoided almost all comment and just summarized the plot, even giving away the ending, which seems quite odd, as though the subject matter was too hot to handle.

The devices used in the opening credits remind me of "International House," also made around this time, and also a pretty risqué film. Not until 1959, with the release of "Some Like it Hot," would the Hays Code finally be abandoned, and films like "Baby Face" be made again.

Excellent, pre-code amoral tale with Barbara Stanwyck as the newly inspired (by writings of Nietzsche!) to drive out her sensitivities and exploit herself, use men to her advantage. Not really fair on the German philosopher but interesting that this was the year Hitler came to power. Stanwyck, even in this young version doesn't do a lot for me but she certainly performs well here, ever driving herself and the film forward. Not as much flesh on display here as one might have expected but plenty of risqué situations and astonishing quips and innuendo. Great fun, if not a particularly attractive presentation of men and I suppose in all honesty not a very attractive view of the gold digging female. Still, that's life!

This is a hard-boiled Warner Brothers film starring a very young Barbara Stanwyck. A consummate master at portraying Machiavellian cool, a technique she perfected eleven years later in Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity", Stanwyck plays Lily Powers, the well-worn daughter of a violent speakeasy owner in a suffocating steel-town. She has been rendered cynical and numb by years of being offered up as a sexual favor to her father's customers. Once her father dies in a distillery explosion, she hops a freight train to New York and literally sleeps her way up the corporate ladder of a bank.

This would come across as preposterous were it not for Stanwyck's blazing work here. With her dead-eyed stare and amoral seduction methods, it is easy to see why men become addicted to her aggressive carnality. One of the young men she seduces along the way is a fresh-faced John Wayne as of all things, an accountant named Jimmy McCoy. The melodrama gets heavy-handed toward the last third of the film with a murder-suicide, a hush-hush job in Paris to keep Lily quiet and the new bank president who is so addicted to Lily that he embezzles company funds to keep her in luxury. A tacked-on ending is somewhat disappointing but not before Stanwyck sears the screen. The film has curious touches like Lily's bonding friendship with an African-American woman named Chico and the German immigrant who teaches Lily about Nietzsche philosophy regarding the importance of avoiding sentimentality.

Babyface - Notorious Barbara Stanwyck flick where she is told by the local professor type that she has power- he tries to get her to read Nietzche- she says books ain't never done her no good.Soon we find out her father is basically pimping her out to a local politico and others.Finally she has had enough and relocates to the big city.We follow her trail of men up the ladder of success in an international bank.The dialogue is quite saucy for it's time and it was one the last films to come out before the self inflicted Hollywood production code.Look for a cameo by a young John Wayne as one of Stanwyck's willing victims.Part of the Forbidden Hollywood collection - I watched the extended version- the DVD has both versions plus Red-Headed Woman and Waterloo Bridge.An interesting movie and foreshadowing for future femme fatale roles that Stanwyck would play in the era of film noir. B+

BABY FACE is one of the better of the "forgotten" films before the code. It was shown last night after the 1931 version of WATERLOO BRIDGE on the TURNER CLASSIC NETWORK, so I was able to watch the film as it is now with four plus minutes of it restored.

Stanwyck is living in East St. Louis (where she may have known the drunken parents of "Myra" - Mae Clarke - in WATERLOO BRIDGE). Her father is Robert Barrett. She has lived with him since the death of her mother, and (in the restored dialog) he has been pimping her since she was 14 years old. Now she is resident waitress and part-time whore in his speakeasy, her closest friend being Chico (Theresa Harris), the African-American servant who Barrett keeps bullying. It is one of the two good points of Stanwyck's personality that she keeps standing up to her father about Harris, threatening to leave if Harris is fired (and since it is the grubby workers like Nat Pendleton, who enjoy seeing Stanwyck serve them, rather than the flavor of the hooch he serves that brings them in, Barrett has to obey her).

The one guy who comes to the speakeasy regularly whom Stanwyck likes is the shoemaker and intellectual Adolf Cragg (Alphonse Ethier), who sees great potential in the spirited girl if she will just leave her forsaken home. He is also pushing the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzche, and the idea of the will to power. More about this later.

After she knocks out the local political bigwig (Arthur Hohl), and has an argument with Barrett about this, a still explosion kills Barrett, and enables Stanwyck to leave her home town. She and Harris head to New York City, managing to get free transport by a railroad freight car by sleeping with a brakeman (James Murray). They reach New York, and after walking about they see the Gotham Trust Company (established 1873), and the friendly guard tells her where the personnel office is.

We slowly watch Stanwyck ascend the corporate ladder to the top, similar (but sleazier) than Robert Morse dared in HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING. But Morse was a man in a man dominated company. Stanwyck knows her sexual allure is her weapon. She goes through John Wayne, Douglas Dumbrille (a section of the film that I always felt was the most shocking - curiously enough - when I watched it), Douglas Wood, Henry Kolker, and finally George Brent. Each ends up falling for her, and either being pushed aside when no longer useful, or destroyed by her. Brent, the new President of the Bank his grandfather founded, eventually marries her - and the crisis of the film is when the bank's economic situation is shaken (especially after Brent buys her a fortune in jewels and gives her valuable bonds). Brent is indicted. Will she stick up for him?

SPOILER COMING UP:

The one thing about these films that is not admitted is that the theatrical and moral conventions of the time still dictated endings. The original ending had Stanwyck boarding a ship for Europe abandoning Brent to his fate, but realizing she can't do it to him, returning to their apartment house, and finding he's shot himself. She is riding with him to the hospital as it ends. Now before the rediscovered footage was found, the film ended with them apparently giving up all their money to the bank to save it, and retiring back to East St. Louis, to live happily if poor.

Neither of these are good endings. Stanwyck should continue on her destructive course, with Brent the last of her victims. But even without the Breen office the script writers (one is Darryl Zanuck, by the way) saw fit to have her find a moral center. She has none - at least none for powerful men (whom she hates). I don't think that a depression audience would have tolerated that type of conclusion.

There are other problems, due to the changing styles of public opinion and changes in society. It was a man's world in the corporate world in 1933, so Stanwyck has her work cut out for her. Wood (when she is going to be fired for an indiscretion with him) admits that he did not want her to work.

But in 2006, Stanwyck would have been finding woman all over the place. In the film there are nasty, catty remarks (obviously some based on jealousy) towards Stanwyck from other secretaries and female employees at her rapid rise. In 2006, she'd be frequently confronting women superiors, and she would find them cutting her off at the legs very quickly. Of course, if she finds one or two are lesbians she might try that road but it is doubtful. And she also never seems to meet any men who are gay. They do have gay male executives in business, who wouldn't give a damn about her legs or breasts.

Then there is her mentor, Mr Cragg. Cragg is remade in the "bowdlerized" version into trying to make her seek a moral center. In reality he pushes Nieztsche, but the way (in a broader sense) the Nazis pushed Nieztsche - find your way to power and push it. While Nieztsche did stress power sometimes, it wasn't the be-all and end-all of his theories. Otherwise nobody would read him today in college courses. Cragg is obviously self-educated, but only half-educated. In short if somebody who thoroughly studied Nieztsche confronted Cragg he'd make him look like a half-educated fool. And this is Stanwyck's mentor! A good film, and for it's day worth a 10...but seriously flawed.