Directed by Alfred E. Green
Starring Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent and Donald Cook
Produced by Warner Bros.
For many of us, our job (or lack of one) comes to define us. We are bankers or lawyers or writers or contractors. Other things certainly define us as well, but one of the first questions inevitably asked and answered in any new encounter is “So what do you do?”
If you ask Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck), the lead character of Baby Face, that question, she may say she works at a speakeasy or at a bank. But that’s not her real job. The professional occupation she has chosen is dream girl and concubine.
Throughout Baby Face, Lily uses her feminine wiles to seduce men only to discard them when the next social and class climbing opportunity presents itself. After watching her father (who basically pimped his daughter to his customers) die in a speakeasy fire without a shred of regret, Lily’s climb through the offices of a bank becomes literal. With each sexual conquest, the camera pans up yet another floor in the bank building to show us Lily’s ascent right up to the bank president’s office.
Once there, she has achieved everything she’s dreamed of. She has money and cars and jewels. The only problem is one of the people she left behind was the bank president’s almost son-in-law (he broke off the engagement after falling under Lily’s spell). He tries to move on, but can’t which leads to murder/suicide that leaves Lily covered in scandal.
To this point, Baby Face is all campy fun with Stanwyck as a very believable seductress. However, Lily meets her match in the new bank president, Courtland Trenholm (George Brent). When she tries to blackmail the bank’s board by selling her diary to the highest bidder, she casts herself as a victim who has no choice but to use the scandal to pay her bills. Trenholm sees right through and offers that, if she just wants to move on with her life, he can get her a nice position with their branch in Paris. Lily needs to stay in her role as victim and reluctantly agrees.
At this point, Stanwyck stops being a fun villainess and the movie tries to cast her in the role of heroine as it rounds its final turns. Trenholm falls for her during a visit to Paris, but instead of redeeming her, it makes him appear dumb and naïve.
Baby Face is ultimately two-thirds a great movie with a phenomenal lead performance. Lily constantly teeters on the edge of losing the audience but always manages to make us want more. Like her many suitors in the film, we just can’t stop falling for Lily and that’s in large part thanks to Stanwyck.
Final Grade:
B
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