Baby Face (1933)

dir. Alfred E. Green
writ. Gene Markey & Kathryn Scola (screenplay), Darryl F. Zanuck (story, as Mark Canfield)
feat. Barbara Stanwyck, George Brent, Donald Cook, Alphonse Ethier, Henry Kolker, Margaret Lindsay

For all of the hullabaloo surrounding its multiple versions and pre-code raciness, Baby Face is actually a rather sweet moral tale. Thankfully, it waits for the final moments to get around to the well-meaning message, giving Stanwyck time to exhibit unbridled greed and encourage lustful behavior. We witness the extremes of the morality play, beginning with a father who has pimped out his daughter (Stanwyck as Lily Powers) since she was 14, followed by his death in a raging fire that Lily watches with disinterest. Lost and confused, Lily turns to a philosophical friend who introduces her to the teachings of Nietzsche, encouraging her to be her own super woman, using her already well-developed feminine wiles to get what she wants.

Inspired, Lily heads to the big city, where she swaggers and sways up the corporate ladder, her progress amusingly tracked by a camera craning up the outside of the building to each successive floor and department. Lily's pressing greed and seductive prowess are a joy to behold as she lures each new department head only to ensare and leave him behind for the next. Naturally, she is unforgettable and irresistible, wreaking havoc along the way until the uncontrolled lust builds to tragedy. As the embarrassed firm attempts to lose her, Lily botches a buyout in her efforts to appear honest and hard-working, winding up in a new job and a new city.

Lily's old ways don't seem as satisfying anymore though and she sets her sights on the "good man" (Brent) who didn't let her off the hook so easily. Of course, he is just as easily smitten as the next guy, even if he sees her tricks. She, on the other hand, is unaccustomed to being so transparent and can't stomach her own manipulations with the big slob who truly loves her. His sincerity is more than she can handle, the chink in her armor through which she is pierced by (gasp) true love of her own.