Baby Face (1933)

Director:

Alfred E. Green

Writers:

Darryl F. Zanuck (story)
Gene Markey (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

1 July 1933 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

She climbed the ladder of success - wrong by wrong!

Plot:

Lilly (Baby Face) sleeps her way from basement speakeasy bartender, literally floor by floor, to the top floor of a New York office building...

Plot Keywords:

Bank | Speakeasy | Nietzsche | Sexually Aggressive Woman | Melodrama

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Barbara Stanwyck	...	Lily Powers
George Brent	...	Courtland Trenholm
Donald Cook	...	Ned Stevens
Alphonse Ethier	...	Adolf Cragg
Henry Kolker	...	J.P. Carter
Margaret Lindsay	...	Ann Carter
Arthur Hohl	...	Ed Sipple
John Wayne	...	Jimmy McCoy Jr.
Robert Barrat	...	Nick Powers
Douglass Dumbrille	...	Brody (as Douglas Dumbrille)
Theresa Harris	...	Chico
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Walter Brennan	...	(scenes deleted)

Runtime:

71 min | 76 min (restored version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:16 (1933) | USA:TV-PG (TV rating)

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Originally banned in some US cities due to its sexual innuendo.

Goofs:

Miscellaneous: After Lily mentions to Courtland she would like to be a Mrs., there are two shots of newspapers announcing the wedding. The second shot is a close up of two paragraphs. The first paragraph misspells Courtland's name as "Courtney" and the word company as "comany."

Quotes:

Lily Powers: What could I do? He's my boss and I have to earn my own living.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood (2008) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Baby Face

Good Lessons To be Learned

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.