Perhaps the most notorious pre-Code Hollywood film, Baby Face features Barbara Stanwyck as Lily Powers, a working-class woman who uses men and sex in exchange for material gain during the height of the Depression. Conceived as a feminine equivalent to Warner Bros.’ male gangster, Lily refused to be a victim of her fate and instead fights for her economic survival. Stanwyck’s Warners contract gave her story approval, and she and then-Vice President of Production at Warner Bros., Darryl Zanuck, developed the sex-for-power scenario together in a story conference. Suppressed by the Production Code Administration after 1933, Baby Face was largely unseen until 2004, when the Library of Congress discovered an uncensored print.
35mm, b/w, 76 min. Production: Warner Bros. Distribution: Warner Bros. Producer: William LeBaron. Director: Alfred E. Green. Screenwriter: Gene Markey, Kathryn Scola. Cinematographer: James Van Trees. Editor: Howard Bretherton. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook, Alphonse Ethier.
