T's Take on BABY FACE

Babyface: vicious trollop or Machiavellian mastermind? I'm willing to classify her as both. The victim of abuse as a young woman, Babyface was given philosophic council, possibly in error. We follow Lily (Babyface) as she develops into something more than a user, more than a grifter or drifting boyhowdy. She becomes a kind of systematic, sociopolitical succubus who undertakes the dismantling of men as a full time job, a kind of double agent biding her time with tedious menial work on her arduous way to the top. We watch her slink from floor to floor in the only way she knows how: she hooks a man, she ensured the two of them will be caught together, and uses the opportune meeting with her beaux's immediate supervisor to shack up with him instead, discarding her previous occupant like a hermit crab having outgrown its shell.

This movie sends two messages, and I think I understand the reasoning. In her father's speakeasy she meets an elder, learned man. He introduces her to an edition of Nietzsche I can't be bothered to recall and councils to her exploit the men she finds Of Use. True, by simple virtue of her life experience and overall attitude toward life she seems virtually cut out to leave particles of business-types like the pathetic gaggle of management unfortunate enough to cross her path swirling in her wake... But there's something about her mentor/father figure that I just don't buy.

Like Nietzsche himself might of all life, the man assumes the young Lily completely beyond redemption or happiness. He assumes she could never be content or at peace contributing little and accepting little, working her way up a ladder legitimately, or depending on humanity as a means of self-propagation. No, the only way that the intelligent, self-reliant, infinitely resilient and capable young Lily could possibly make something of herself is by finding something previously established and rending it limb from limb as a means to an end. Very practical, but by all means extremely dim in his view of our young lass.

By the end of the movie we find Lily at odds with herself for the path she's chosen, and realizes the all that glitters isn't gold. She leaves the money she's accrued on the floor of an ambulance to comfort the only man she's come to care about. The man, of course, who attempted suicide after she left him hanging with a billion-dollar lawsuit hanging around his neck as a direct result of his involvement with her. Not the first man to try ending his life on her account, naturally. I hardly felt a sense of redemption watching her come rushing to the aid of this man, when two had fallen previous in their misbegotten flailings over her love-em-and-leave-em attitude.

I understand Babyface in her simplistic way, but I feel like the story was a little too realistically cold and opportunistic to leave me comfortable. I like that in a movie.

M's Musings on BABY FACE

Baby Face.  Dir. Alfred E. Green.  Story by Darryl F. Zanuck (pseud. Mark Canfield).  Screenplay by Gene Markey and Kathryn Scola.  Ft. Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent. Warner Brothers, 1933.

There is so much to say about this film.  Is it horrifying?  Is it empowering?  Is it something else entirely?  From a moral perspective, this movie is fascinating, because it is beholden to none.  Do we hate Lily for her sexual prowess and general apathy toward men?  Do we hate the restrictive patriarchal society that encourages, and in some cases, demands this type of behaviour?  What do we think of the cobbler's interpretation of Nietzsche and Lily's "application" of it?  How does the race dynamic function in the film?  What does the ambiguous ending mean?  And, most importantly, how do we read this film in light of its censored release and subsequent "rediscovery"?  These are just some of the thoughts ricocheting around in my mind. 

Lily abandons her life at her father's speakeasy as a prostitute to gain agency and go get the things she wants (read: fur coats, jewelry and a permanent).  With her trusty friend/co-worker Chico turning around for privacy, Lily ensures their arrival in New York City with a late night tryst with the train worker trying to kick them out. It is a sexualized telling of the American Dream. Lily and her four dollars pick a bank, and then Lily pillages her way to the top with no regard to the lives torn apart due to her sexual misconduct. As the camera pans up the floors to demarcate Lily's progress, Lily gives the men exactly what they want so that she can achieve more and more markers of wealth and privilege.  In the end, she is able to decide whether or not to take pity on her husband, the indicted bank president, choosing first to keep the things she worked for, and then decides that she will give it all up as this man she can truly love.

Lily's mentor's words of wisdom basically demand the plot structure of the rest of the film:

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!

In the same way that the cleverest men who "want it the most" will rise to the top, it is Lily's ability to read men and play the roles they most desire that allow her to succeed.  Her body and her "baby face" as well as her ingenuity all factor as key attributes to get the necessary rise out of her would-be sugar daddies.  By exploiting yourself you can exploit others, and thus get everything you desire.  Embrace your feminine wiles... and you can have men buy you nice things.  All in all, a fun commentary on how one defines work, as well as a critique of the economic system that has instilled these values.

This whole idea that if you can learn how the system works and then use that knowledge as leverage, and thus regain some agency... makes this movie more than worth watching.  Lily is sassy and hard right up until the final moments.  I suppose the biggest let down for me was the ending.  I wanted her to walk away, to keep her sense of entitlement and not desire this "love" sentiment that she worked so hard against.  It cast a moral pallor on earlier actions where having none was far more critical.

Lily, through choosing her husband, redefines "what she wants" by selecting the more honourable gender role of wife over higher economic status...  Having money without the attachments and security of a man will not be enough.  What did other people think of the ending???  

A couple more points.   Along the way, we have a racial dynamic that parallels Lily's story.  As soon as Lily sleeps with the train attendant, Chico loses her own agency and becomes dependent on Lily.  Lily rises in power and wealth, and Chico becomes her maid.  She appears inconsistently as a friend in fine dress or as an employed waitperson who never judges, or even reacts, to the prestige and tactics that Lily uses to take care of them.  Chico has no agency of her own, no choice to make...  She simply follows Lily.   This is not a successful depiction of face in my opinion.

  

Finally:  the film I saw was not the film that Warner Brothers released. Last night, T and I sat down to watch the uncensored 1933 version of Baby Face that has recently (in 2005) been "discovered" at the Library of Congress, after it was assumed to be lost forever.   The film that was released made Lily into a "bad" girl by framing the narrative with a very conservative moral structure.  Instead of acting as a commentary on how abuse leads to more abuse, the film becomes about Lily's poor moral character.  The tagline:  She climbed the ladder of success - wrong by wrong!  

The various methods of controlling the narrative through censorship are worth noting:

Calm and limit the sexuality. Remove any references to prostitution. Make the cobbler an advocate for making "good" decisions.  Delete the Nietzsche.  Delete the train scene.  Keep all references to success as consumerism.  Play up the morality of the ending.  Encourage submission of women to men, black to white, and poor to rich.  

Fascinating.