Stanwyck as sex goddess

Speaking of women’s power, I just saw a remarkable movie, “Baby Face” (1933), starring a very young, extremely attractive and sexy Barbara Stanwyck. She plays Lily Powers, a girl from a rough background, helping her brutish father run his saloon where men are pawing at her all the time. When her father dies, an older man, Mr. Cragg, who has befriended her, advises Lily to leave the roughneck town where she lives (Erie, Pa.) and make something of herself. She says, how can she, she’s a woman. He answers that being a woman is an advantage, she can use her beauty to advance herself.

Now the DVD on which I saw the movie has both the pre-release version of the film, and the final, theatrical version. The former is notably rawer than the final product, containing highly charged sexual scenes. Also, in the pre-release version Mr. Cragg urges Lily to read Nietzsche, and he tells her, in chilling, ruthless terms, to use her power over men to get ahead in life, a message she takes fully to heart. In the theatrical version, Nietzsche is not mentioned, and Cragg’s message to her is somewhat softened.

An article by Rich Drees on the pre-release version, which was discovered by accident just a few years ago, recounts the two scenes in detail:

After her father’s death, Lily is inspired by the local cobbler Cragg (Alphonse Ethier) to seek her fortunes in Manhattan. In the original version, he advises her to continue what she was forced to do by her father, but this time for her own gain. “A woman, young, beautiful, like you can get anything she wants in the world because you have power over men,” he tells her. “But you must use men, not let them use you. You must be a master, not a slave. Exploit yourself. Go to some big city where you will find opportunities. Use men to get things you want.”

The scene was modified by Warners not only to remove the salacious tone, but also to put a different moral spin on it. Cragg now counseled “A woman, young beautiful, like you can get anything she want in the world, but there is a right and a wrong way. Remember the price of the wrong way is much too great. Go to some big city where you will find opportunities. Don’t let people mislead you. You must be a master, not a slave. Be clean. Be strong, defiant. And you will be a success.”

In any case, Lilly makes her way to New York City, where she uses brazen sexual come-ons to climb to one position after another in the bank where she works, ruthlessly using up one man after another in the process. While I have long regarded Stanwyck as the top movie actress, I’ve never seen a performance of hers like this. She invests the role of Lily with an archetypal, goddess-like, supremely confident sexual allure, even as she remains the tough, street-wise Stanwyck we know, and any man at whom she directs her attentions instantly falls under her power. She does some wicked things, like deliberately breaking up the engagement of a man she is interested in, and causing a murder-suicide. At the end of the movie (which is muddled in both versions, painfully so in the theatrical version though perhaps morally more satisfying), she finally renounces power for love. So the movie presents the usual mix that Hollywood does so well: titillation with a moral ending.

I’m not saying this is a great movie, or a traditionalist movie. It’s an unusual and remarkable movie.

Two other points:

The title, “Baby Face,” is completely inappropriate. There is nothing babyish about Lily.

And there is a terrific performance by George Brent, who in later years was usually cast as a stiff, but in this movie is a handsome fellow with a playful, confident quality, and, finally, Lily’s match.

- end of initial entry -

David B. writes:

How did you like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity?

LA replies:

Great.

The scene where Fred MacMurray comes to her house to sell her insurance, and he’s leaning forward in his chair, and she’s leaning back in hers—that’s one of the sexiest moments in film.

However, I feel that MacMurray’s performance outshines hers. And I can’t stand MacMurray in any of his boy-next-door roles preceding Double Indemnity. It was in this movie, where he brings out a dark and tragic side,—but almost impersonal, like an actor in Greek tragedy wearing a mask—that he became interesting as an actor.

Spencer Warren writes:

This is one of the movies that led to strict enforcement of the Production Code beginning in 1934; it inspired outrage among Catholic leaders and others. The earlier version was censored as well by various State censorship boards.

Yes, it is an interesting film for what it reveals about many pre-Code movies. It’s also great Stanwyck, a wonderful actress/star. It also is trash and shows why, on balance, the Code was justified.

LA replies:

The movie is certainly raw, and contains immoral elements, shockingly immoral in the pre-release version, which features among other things a sexual assignation in a ladies’ room. But I would not call it trash. It is primal rather than trashy.

Of course I agree with Mr. Warren that the Production Code was a blessing. Without it, the great age of movies would not have been what it was because raw sex would have dominated everything. The Production Code is a classic illustration of the benefits of restraints. Without restraints, external and internal, human affairs inevitably head into the cellar. Of course the left in its folly and discontent always puts down the Production Code.

To be fair, there were some extrardinary movies made in the pre-Production Code period that would not have been possible afterward, such as the 1931 “Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde” with Fredric March (discussed here), which is vastly superior to the 1940 version with Spencer Tracy. At the same time, one can see that a certain American healthy-mindedness recognized that a movie such as the ‘1931 “Jekyl and Hyde” would not be good for society.

David B. replies:

Thanks for your opinion. Stanwyck is not as physically attractive as many of the actresses of the period, but her acting ability is so good that you believe that MacMurray would commit murder for her.

In a subplot, MacMurray starts going on dates with Lola, the murdered man’s daughter. He is trying to keep her from talking too much, but he seems to find her nice-girl manner more attractive in some way than Stanwyck. Yes, great acting by Fred MacMurray.

Billy Wilder shot a gas chamber scene, but decided not to have it in the final cut. I always thought he should have left it in, a minority opinion on my part. You need to get the DVD of Double Indemnity released last year if you don’t have it.

LA replies:

I agree that Stanwyck is not of the beauty of the other great movie actresses, having somewhat hard, prosaic features, the New York accent, and lacking the other-worldly glamour we associate with the great female stars. That’s one of the reasons “Baby Face” is so unusual. In this movie, made when she was in her mid 20s, she is strikingly attractive and glamorous.

Spencer Warren writes:

MacMurray is remembered, unfortunately, for his hapless TV persona on My Three Sons. But he was a very good comedic actor at the start of his career in the thirties, especially opposite the great Carole Lombard in several films, the best of which is Hands Across the Table (1935), one of the loveliest screwball comedies.

LA writes:

Since posting the above, I’ve seen the entire pre-release version, of which I had only seen snatches before.

While the changes between the two versions only add up to a few minutes of the entire movie, they are significant, and the pre-release version is definitely superior.

The pre-release version scene where Mr. Cragg gives Lily the Nietzschean advise to use her power over men instead of letting them use her, is crucial to everything that happens afterward. The idea is that up to this point in Lily’s life, men have exploited her. Cragg plants in her mind the idea that she can reverse that situation and consciously use the power she has over men to get what she wants from them. That is the entire basis of the rest of the story. But in the theatrical version, this idea is muddled.

And that leads directly to the next crucial scene in the pre-release version that was removed from the theatrical version. Lily and her Negro girlfriend Chico hop on a freight train to get to New York, and a conductor discovers them and is about to throw them off. Lily, for the first time, puts Mr. Cragg’s advice to work and appeals to the conductor’s sympathy, begging him not to throw them off the train while giving him a come-hither look that cannot be described. A soft, helpless expression comes over the young man’s face, and she leads him into the shadows of the box car.

As I said, this is raw stuff.

Also, as a kind of leitmotif, we see that same helpless, solemn look come over each of Lily’s conquests in turn as the movie proceeds. The movie becomes a kind of myth about the power of sexual attraction.

I want to emphasize again Stanwyck’s remarkable performance. She is completely into the role, and her every facial expression, every line reading, is fresh and striking.

I’m not saying this is a completely worked out movie. There could have been more character development for Lily, and the denouement is a mess. But it’s definitely worth seeing.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 15, 2007 02:05 PM | Send