The story goes that the censors of 1933 found Baby Face to be such an objectionable film that it was one of the reasons for the famous Production Code enforcements of the following year. The New York State Censor Board demanded several small changes to this story of a woman (a ravishing young Barbara Stanwyck) who uses sex to get ahead in life and seems all but incapable of love or compassion. They didn’t like that she slept with married men and ruined their lives. They couldn’t handle that she was unrepentant about it. They likely weren’t too keen on the fact that she starts as a prostitute pimped out by her bootlegger father. And they probably squirmed a little at the way she subtly smiles when her father dies in an accidental fire.
Ultimately, it’s the most potent American film of the 1930s about the power of pussy. All Barbara Stanwyck’s Lily Powers has to do is smile at a man and he loses his mind over her. The path from rags to fur coats is full of obstacles and Lily fucks her way through all of them.
There are two versions of Baby Face. There’s the original cut, which never came out at the time and that’s remarkably non-judgmental about Lily’s ways. Then there’s the post-Censor Board cut that’s five minutes shorter due to the excision of a few suggestive snippets. It also slips in a pointed criticism of Lily during a scene that actually has the opposite meaning in the original cut. The unreleased version was thought lost until 2004 when it turned up in a vault in Dayton, Ohio. Today, both versions are easy to find.
Look for a pre-fame John Wayne in a small role as an office worker who strikes out with Lily.