Cinema Can Do Starring Roles: Baby Face

The comprehensive Pre-Code series we presented in 2014 is remembered above all as a true viewing delight – fast-paced narratives, sassy verbal exchanges and self-confident women. The films made in the early 30s just before the introduction of Hollywood studios’ self-imposed morality guidelines give an account of everyday life in America in unvarnished fashion. One exemplary Pre-Code heroine is Lily Powers in BABY FACE, played by Barbara Stanwyck. Lily grows up in her father’s shady speakeasy. She takes the advice of a guest who is reading Nietzsche to heart: use men rather than letting them use you. She spontaneously hops on a goods train to New York where she manages to wangle a job in a big bank building in Manhattan (“Have any experience?” – “Plenty!”). Lily approaches social climbing with a total lack of either scruples or sentiment. We are showing the uncensored restored version discovered by the Library of Congress in 2004. (al)