Barbara Stanwyck plays an attitude as much as a character in Baby Face, but what an attitude. After fleeing from the factory town where her barkeep father tried to pimp her out, Stanwyck’s Lily Powers decides—with a little help from Nietzsche’s Will to Power—that if men can only see her as a sexual being, she’s going to use that quality as a weapon. And so starting with the train guard who threatens to throw her and her father’s servant (Theresa Harris) off the car in which they’re hiding, Lily seduces one man after another, leaving each behind after they’ve served their purpose, until she’s conned her way into the bed/pocketbook of the CEO of a major New York City bank. (Director Alfred E. Green winkingly captures her “sleeping her way to the top” with a shot that rises along the exterior of the bank’s skyscraper, one floor at a time.) Early on, Lily refuses to take any crap from her father’s customers (“I was good up to now,” she tells a leering politician who asks her how she’s been; when he paws at her later, she cracks a bottle of beer over his head.) Once she reaches New York City, her exploits have the calculation and cruelty of a revenge flick, as Lily flips gender and power dynamics on their heads. Stanwyck’s dismissive slouch and blunt line delivery make Lily’s rise seem inevitable, yet you still wonder how she got away with it, especially in a 1933 movie. Well, at first she didn’t. After censors banned the film in some cities upon its release, a new ending was shot in which Lily is clearly punished. The originally filmed ending, now restored to most versions in circulation, is much more complicated. After genuinely falling for another banker (George Brent), who then finds himself threatened with financial ruin after his bank’s collapse, Lily must choose between the wealth she has accumulated over the years and bailing him out. When he asks for help, Stanwyck’s attitude cracks and we get a scary burst of desperation: “I can’t do it. I’ve got to think of myself. I’ve gone through a lot to get those things.” The power is clearly now in Lily’s hands; Baby Face’s most pertinent question is, What will she do with it?
(6/29/2022)
