There have been written so many things about "Baby Face", being the probably MOST daring and explicitly sexual movie before the enforcement of the Hays Code - in fact, one of the main REASONS for its rigorous enforcement - that every fan of classic films, even if he hasn't actually seen it, knows pretty well what it's all about. A girl who's been 'working' in her father's dubious 'establishment', 'entertaining' men ever since she was 14, and after her father's death escaping to New York and REALLY climbing up the ladder; 'wrong by wrong', as the ads for the movie promised the scandal-hungry audience of the time...
Although this movie should be regarded exclusively in itself, there is ONE comparison that inevitably comes to mind - to the OTHER great pre-Code movie that had been released just two months before "Baby Face", and constituted the other half of the gravestone that Will Hays would soon put on this kind of 'unacceptably immoral' movies: Mae West's "I'm No Angel"... In fact, the philosophy of the two starring ladies is just about the same; only that Mae expressed it in her own, casual way of 'Find 'em, fool 'em, and forget 'em', while Barbara goes by the philosophical advice of none other than Nietzsche: 'Face life as you find it - defiantly and unafraid. Waste no energy yearning for the moon. Crush out all sentiment.' And so she does - she uses her female assets to make a VERY quick career at a big bank, making it to the 'executive suite' in literally no time; she uses the way that Mae West had suggested in words and humorous double-entendres, but VERY explicitly and unequivocally for the whole audience. And she gives a MAGNIFICENT performance (maybe the best one of her whole, great career) as the tough gal determined to do EVERYTHING in order to reach the 'top' - and yet, just when she thinks she's got everything she wanted (everything measurable in dollars, jewels and fur coats, that is), her sentiment, that she'd been trying so hard to crush, sets in, and her 'success story' becomes a drama...
And that's exactly the difference between "Baby Face" and "I'm No Angel": Mae West, as always, takes even her most spicy adventures with humor, always staying on top of things and getting what she wants; while Barbara Stanwyck is forced by the circumstances almost from the beginning of her life to become a 'bad girl' - and that was obviously a TOO much realistic view of things for the Hays Office: while "I'm No Angel" finally got its seal, "Baby Face" was withdrawn from release and edited until it was 'fit' for distribution. But it was still HIGHLY explosive stuff, and soon afterwards the final curtain came down on those daring, 'outrageous' pre-Code movies in the shape of Will Hays' 'Bible' called the Production Code, which would from now on be rigorously applied to EVERY movie before it would be granted a seal.
So enjoy "Baby Face" as one of the most audacious pre-Code films - and as one of the VERY best movies of classic Hollywood in general, featuring one of the GREATEST performances of one of the GREATEST actresses of all times!
