Expected more

The first must-see film of the year.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This film was very different than the other films being made during the 30s. It was all about sex and a woman who was used to using her body to work her way to the top. The adventures of this woman trying to find a way in life by using questionable methods makes this movie worth watching, highly recommended.

There are several things that make this salacious pre-Code film worth watching, starting with Barbara Stanwyck, of course, who with her eyes and sexy come-on's seduces man after man to get ahead, literally f'ing her way to the top. There are some fantastic scenes from the beginning, where she fends off the advances of one man at her father's bar by pouring coffee on his hand, and explodes with anger at her father for essentially pimping her out since the age of 14. It's when he perishes in a fire that she has to fend for herself in the world. I'm not a big fan of John Wayne, but for those who are, you'll see him in an early role as one of her men along the way, and it was great to see Theresa Harris, who plays her maid. Lastly, I liked the elements of Nietzschean philosophy that at least form a basis for, and perhaps attempt to justify, Stanwyck using sex to get what she needs and wants out of men.On the other hand, the film is quite cynical and pretty linear in its plot. Stanwyck simply screws man after man – starting with a railroad worker who catches her hitching a ride to New York, and ending with an executive in a skyscraper. The film is brazen about this, and at one point she has sex in the ladies room, so if you're looking for elements of romance, this is not your film. How interesting is it that these "gold digger" themes are so common in films of this period, with men "victimized", when the far more prevalent situation in offices is sexual harassment, the inverse. While Stanwyck is one of my favorite actresses of the period, and it was exciting to see her in this steamy role, with those "take me" eyes and slow lead-ins to kisses, it's really rather hard to like any of the characters. The ending was a lame effort to patch some of that up, and didn't work for me. There are several Barbara Stanwyck pre-code films I would recommend over this one, including Night Nurse (1931), Ladies They Talk About (1933), and The Purchase Price (1932). If you're looking for high-wattage pre-Code shock value, though, this one is hard to top.

The coolest part about this movie, in my opinion, is that in most movies like this you see the character of a Femme Fatale- the woman who is seducing men and either helping or hurting the protagonist while doing so. But in Babyface, you're not only seeing it from the side of the Femme Fatale, you're seeing one that was forced into it and ended up having to adopt that sort of life style because it's all she's ever known. And yet, at the end of this, she is still redeemed by promising her devotion to a man, despite men historically being the route of her exploitation and humiliation. My only issues with this movie are the depiction of a woman sleeping her way to the top as a movie trope, and the false rape accusation.

I recently rented this movie because I had read that it was among the controversial films, perhaps the most controversial film, of the early 1930s that so riled conventional opinion in its overt immorality that the Legion of Decency and the Hays Code were instituted soon after to remold Hollywood filmmaking to remove objectionable content from motion pictures. Lily (a very young Barbara Stanwyck) is a barmaid of easy virtue working in her father's illegal speakeasy. We see her father "give" her to a politically influential client to ensure protection from the authorities. But Lily doesn't roll over for all the guys; some guys she likes and some guys she refuses including the guy with political connections, much to her father's anger. Amid this moral squalor Lily is "mentored", of sorts, by an older gentleman with a German accent who proclaims Nietzsche as the greatest philosopher and brings her Nietzsche's books including his "Will to Power" which the tough-talking and uneducated Lily seems disinclined to read. "You must exploit others, or they will exploit you" he tells her, and the rest of the film shows her using that advice to sexually entice men to get what she wants as she climbs the ladder of wealth and privilege; a reversal from the sexual exploitation she endured under her father.Lily is apparently sexually exciting because every man she meets, and I mean every man from lechers to family men, is eager to be with her for her carnal delights, even at the risk of their families, their betrothed, and the firms they run. All the while as she uses and then drops these guys, the jewels and furs accumulate, and miraculously the "aintcha" lingo from the speakeasy days morphs into more refined language. Her motives are so transparent in this film that its almost amusing to see these guys, to use an old expression, "let the little head decide what the big head should decide" and they bear the consequences for that. But Lily doesn't. At the end of the film she's loaded with wealth and has apparently found true love, although I would be doubtful as to its permanence. The Hays code was instituted so that films would not depict the rewarding of criminal or immoral behavior as transpired in Baby Face. I would imagine a Baby Face as modified by the Hays code would show her eventually receiving retribution in the form of a STD (no, I don't think so!) or having a church steeple topple over on her.