Review of Baby Face (1933) by Edith N — 03 Oct 2008

This is one of those movies that couldn't've taken place under the Code, even though the story is actually quite moral in its lesson. Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck) went out for what she could get, and she got it the only way she knew how. It's only at the end that she learns that she was going after all the wrong things. At that, I think she wasn't entirely wrong for all that. I think she was also driven to be the sort of person who couldn't see anything but the material by a world that wouldn't let her be any other way. Her father hurt her--he "surrounded her with men from the time she was fourteen." She was only trying to get a place where she could stand on her own, and in that time and in that place, that meant sleeping your way to the top, unless you were born there.

Lily wasn't. She was born in a nowhere town and ended up working in a sleazy bar. There is no little implication that she's a prostitute. Eventually, she and her best friend, Chico (Theresa Harris), get out. They go to New York, and Lily goes knowing that the best way for her to get what she wants is to seduce her way to it. So she starts working her way up a chain of "boyfriends," each one richer and more able to assist her than the last. It's a short movie, so there's not much more to it than that, other than the inevitable downfall. After all, I did say this is a moral story, didn't I?

My understanding is that Barbara Stanwyck really had her career killed by the Code. She was used to playing young, independent, fiery women, and the Code didn't allow for them. Pretty much what the Code allowed for was Doris Day. Scarlett O'Hara was a little too shocking for the Code, really. For just a handful of years, these women were able to sleep around, smoke, even have abortions. They were allowed to be equal to the men, if not superior in places. Hells, come to that, she was even allowed to have her best friend be black, even if that best friend did end up becoming her servant. After all, I imagine, better that the sugar daddy pay the best friend's room and board than have her have to do it herself!

Some see a lesbian relationship in the friendship between Lily and Chico. After all, they say, they are there at the beginning, and they are still together at the end. I, however, say that anyone who sees that is reading too much into it. It's true that we don't see Lily being tender to anyone else, but few people give her reason to. Even the men who "love" her are interested primarily in her looks. Chico knows who Lily is and loves her anyway. With everyone else, either they despise Lily or she feels she must hide from them. Haven't you ever had a friend so close that they know you better than you know yourself? Have you necessarily wanted to sleep with that person? Isn't it often the case that you know them too well?

This isn't a great movie, but I didn't really go into it to watch a movie. I went into it as much to pick up on a phenomenon, a fact of a life that doesn't exist anymore. The so-called pre-Code days were so fleeting, so rare, but they left such astonishing traces. We know nothing of this time anymore without looking at the legacy spilled across celluloid, this history written in light.