Going goo-goo ga-ga over Baby Face

The naughty nature of the pre-code Hollywood period was on full display last evening during "Baby Face," a surprisingly provocative and entertaining early talkies-era flick. After stripping this little Tinsel Town teaser down to its essentials, here's what we concluded:

WHAT WOULD CENSORS HAVE FOUND OBJECTIONABLE AND RACY ABOUT BABY FACE—CAN YOU CITE ANY PARTICULAR SHOTS, SCENES, DIALOGUE OR IDEAS?

·       The fact that Lily is a sexual predator who sleeps her way to the top—literally, moving up from floor to floor in her sexual conquests of men to reach a higher status and wealth. The sheer number of sexual dalliances she has with so many men in this picture would have offended those with delicate dispositions.

·       There is no comeuppance in this pre-release version: Lily is not punished for her behavior, despite the fact that it’s led to possibly three men’s deaths.

·       A man gropes Lily’s breasts, feels up her thigh and she is pawed over.

·       Her body is objectified: We see a slow panning shot of her legs and shots accentuating her alluring female form.

·       Lily has a friendly relationship on equal social status terms with her maid, Chico; censors after 1933 frowned on depicting African Americans in non-stereotyped roles that typically didn’t include being a porter, butler, maid, cook or servant of some kind.

·       Lily’s father plays the role of a pimp, essentially prostituting out his daughter to bar patrons; it’s also possible that they have had an incestuous relationship since she was 14.

·       The cobbler’s scene where he reads from Nietzsche would have rattled cages. He says to Lily: “A woman, young, beautiful like you, can get anything she wants in the world. Because you have power over men. But you must use men, not let them use you. You must be a master, not a slave. Look here — Nietzsche says, "All life, no matter how we idealize it, is nothing more nor less than exploitation." That's what I'm telling you. Exploit yourself. Go to some big city where you will find opportunities! Use men! Be strong! Defiant! Use men to get the things you want!” This would have been controversial not only because it endorsed what would have been considered lurid, promiscuous behavior but because it was a soliloquy that empowered the role of women over men.

·       The use of the sultry jazz tune “St. Louis Blues” to underscore Lily’s carnality makes it a titillating musical cue meant to arouse as well as humor audiences.

DOES THIS FILM STAND ON ITS OWN AS ENTERTAINING, ARTISTIC OR IMPORTANT WITHOUT IT BEING AN HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE AS A MOVIE THAT HELPED USHER IN THE ERA OF CINEMA CENSORSHIP, OR IS ITS TRUE VALUE AS A DATED BUT STILL SURPRISING MUSEUM PIECE?

·       In any era, the film doesn’t work without the acting talent of Barbara Stanwyck, who has a magnetism and alluring charm about her as well as an irrepressible female strength and conviction.

·       While the screenplay may not be Oscar-worthy, the scenes and dialogue are fairly well written, and the open-ended conclusion of this pre-release version (which was changed and sanitized for the worse in the release version) seems to fit.

·       The Nietzsche speech in this version, cleaned up and changed in the release version, give Lily a philosophical motivation that makes things clearer to viewers.

OTHER FAMOUS EXAMPLES OF CONTROVERSIAL SCENES FROM PRE-CODE HOLLYWOOD FILMS:

·       King Kong pawing the clothes off Fay Wray in the 1933 original

·       Jane swimming naked underwater in “Tarzan and His Mate” (1934)

·       The shootings and onscreen violence in the original “Scarface” (1932)

·       The line “Now I know what it’s like to be God” and the drowning of the young girl by the monster in the original “Frankenstein” (1931)

·       The grapefruit-in-the-face-of-his-girlfriend scene in “The Public Enemy” (1931)

·       Temple Drake being stripped of her clothes by a violent gang in “The Story of Temple Drake” (1933)

·       Actress Miriam Hopkins being objectified, raped and brutalized by Frederic March’s monster in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1931)

·       Norma Shearer getting back at her husband’s infidelity in “The Divorcee” (1929)

·       Bela Lugosi kidnapping a prostitute, tying her up on an inverted cross, puncturing her with needles and eventually killing her in “Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1932)

·       Other examples, taken from Thomas Doherty’s book on pre-code Hollywood, include: “Sexual liaisons unsanctified by the laws of God or man in Unashamed (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), and She Done Him Wrong (1933); marriage ridiculed and redefined in Madame Satan (1930), The Common Law (1931), and Old Morals for New (1932); ethnic lines crossed and racial barriers ignored in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), The Emperor Jones (1933), and Massacre (1934); economic injustice exposed and political corruption assumed in Wild Boys of the Road (1933), This Day and Age (1933), and Gabriel Over the White House (1933); vice unpunished and virtue unrewarded in Red Headed Woman (1932), Call Her Savage (1932), and Baby Face (1933).”