It is a performances centric movie

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

I enjoyed this movie for a few reasons. I think Barbara Stanwyck played her character perfectly and I like how pre code this movie was considering how it was before the Hays code. I also liked how you really get to see how life was as a women in the 30s compared to today.

Baby Face was a surprise to me. Since this movie was in the section of class where we were looking at the gangster flicks. So i was expecting a movie about the famous bank robber "Baby Face nelson". Baby Face instead is about a a girl named Lily played by Barbara Stanwyk. When the movie begins Lily is a girl that is poor and is constantly berated by by men trying to get with her. Eventually after a quick lesson in the philosophy's of Friedrich Nietzsche, she decides to take advantage of the men of a very wealthy bank, by using the power of sex. She does this very well and sleeps up to the top of the corporate ladder. I was so caught off guard by this story in such an old film. This movie was able to be made because it was pre-code and they definitely took advantage of that opportunity. The movie was fantastic, the acting was very good and often funny. It tells its story and message very well. which is that all life is exploitation and men very easily give in to sexual pleasure, and will give lots of money and gift to do so. This is a classic film that I would and will watch again!

First off, I loved learning that this was originally a Vitaphione film, while those were still (barely) used by 1933. As we learned on the early technologies of film sound/audio, it was fun to realize this was one of those rare films that implemented the Vitaphone technology. So, if you have a bit of a crush on Barbara Stanwyck, you might get your guts ripped out from this film, because she is areal floozy, and quite the bedroom-cash-register -- all just to get her way with men. Her character of Lily, is a real rotten soul - but it's a fun movie to get through, to see how it progresses. She basically sleeps her way to success and wealth, from the lowliest bars/speakeasies, and all the way up to the top management of a bank. Sadly, Stanwyck's younger years as kid and teen weren't too far off from this portrayal, sans the prostitution. She grew-up rough, so I'm certain she was comfortable and at least knowledgeable enough to take on this role.

Barbara Stanwyck is perfectly cast in the title role of this sexy drama that was recently restored to its scandalous pre-code origins. Alfred Green directed the Darryl F. Zanuck (aka Mark Canfield) story; Gene Markey and Kathryn Scola wrote the screenplay.It's the story of a woman who grew up in a horrible environment that made her a tramp. But she receives some advice from a local (factory town, Erie) immigrant, who inspires her with readings from Nietzsche - to use what she's got (desirable physical assets and sex) to get what she wants. Freed from her father's suffocating environment (per his death), she goes to Gotham (New York) where she literally sleeps her way to the top, floor by floor, of a prestigious bank.Throughout the film (which was added to the National Film Registry in 2005), the mood is perfectly set by the songs "Baby Face", usually spinning on a record player, and W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues", sung a capella by Theresa Harris, who plays Stanwyck's speakeasy co-worker come traveling partner and future maid, on several occasions in the background.Robert Barrat is a speakeasy owner that uses his baby-faced daughter Lily Powers (Stanwyck) to help sell liquor and more; in fact, she's become a tramp, 'forced' to trade favors in exchange for his business's license and protection from the time she was fourteen years old. The one bright light in Lily's day, filled with shirtless factory laborers like Stolvich (Nat Pendleton, uncredited), is an occasional visit from an older, more respectable immigrant named Adolf Cragg (Alphonse Ethier). He gives her advice and books like Will to Power from German philosopher Nietzsche, encouraging to use her allure and power over men who desire her to get what she wants. Shortly thereafter, she refuses a sleazy local politician (Arthur Hohl) her body and her father is killed in an explosion, which frees her and Chico (Harris) to start anew. In a restored scene, Lily tries her "power" with a railroad signal man so that she and Chico can ride by train boxcar to the big city.Once in Gotham, Lily observes food, clothes, and real wealth for the first time. When she sees a tall skyscraper, she remarks to Chico that "there must be a lot of dough in a place like that", and smiling at a policeman gets her in the door to the personnel department, where she uses her newfound power to get a job. She proceeds to use the power again and again, moving up from clerical workers (John Wayne) to managers (Douglas Dumbrille) to young executives like Ned Stephens (Donald Cook). She causes heartache to those that she dumps along the way, and almost ruins Ned's engagement to his boss's daughter Ann Carter (Margaret Lindsay); Henry Kolker plays bank vice president J.P. Carter. However, she manage to finagle becoming Carter's kept woman. He sets her up in a nice town-home with a butler; Chico is her maid. But Ned is obsessed with her. He discovers her set-up and kills Carter, then himself (a murder-suicide). The scandal causes the bank to bring in a new man, Courtland Trenholm (George Brent). He sizes up Lily who's threatening to give her memoirs to a newspaper for $10,000 unless they pay her $15,000. Though the other board executives were willing to give in, Courtland correctly assumes that Lily's not the demure "this was my first time ever" gal she's pretending to be. He says that giving her a job in their Paris office would satisfy her requirements to go away quietly and anonymously without the large cash settlement.When Courtland visits the Paris office, he's surprised that Lily has kept to herself and not repeated her scandalous behavior there too. She says that she's done it to prove him wrong about her. Of course, it's just a clever ruse because soon Lily has Courtland eating out of her hand - she gets him to marry her! This last scandal is just too much for the bank, which is about to be forced to close. Courtland is indicted. Lily is admiring her accumulated jewels, furs, and half a million dollars cash, boasting that she can get the other half, when a dejected Courtland comes home begging for her (financial) help to hire lawyers for a court fight. She refuses saying she'll never go back to what she was, without her booty nothing would have been worth what she went through, etc.. She tells Chico that they're going on a cruise. Once onboard ship, however, Lily has a change of heart, decides that she really does love Courtland, and rushes back to the bank building to tell him. She finds him in his office shortly after he'd shot himself, an attempted suicide. The film closes with Lily in the ambulance clutching a recovering Courtland eyeing her case full of jewels, telling the attendant that they don't matter anymore before she kisses her husband, grateful he's going to live.