Baby Face
1933 filmWikipedia
22
MENTIONS
6
EPISODES
6
PODCASTS
Search complete. 22 mentions across 6 episodes found for "Baby Face".
Nov 4, 2026
Josh LarsenHOST
What a great marathon.
Josh LarsenHOST
Babyface, Stella Dallas, The Lady Eve, Meet John Doe, Ball of Fire, and then, yeah, Double Indemnity, which was, I don't think it was, it wouldn't have been the first time I saw it.
Josh LarsenHOST
What was it, Josh? I think it was actually.
Adam KempenaarHOST
I think that was a big blind spot for you.
Josh LarsenHOST
Stanwyck, keeping things steamy, Adam, even as we get into fall here and summer falls behind us, still pretty steamy thanks to Stanwyck.
Josh LarsenHOST
Double indemnity, it turns out, kind of a perfect bookend for this marathon.
Josh LarsenHOST
We began with 1933's notorious pre-code Babyface.
Josh LarsenHOST
That does have Stanwyck in femme fatale mode.
Lockie HeissCORRESPONDENT
It reminded me a lot of a very low budget pre-code baby face version, a German version of baby face, where you have the femme fatale.
Lockie HeissCORRESPONDENT
She is the ultimate femme fatale in the sense that she's completely, the film doesn't offer, the storyline doesn't offer much of any kind of redemption on her part at the end.
Lockie HeissCORRESPONDENT
And even in Babyface, you know, where there sort of is a nominal happy ending.
speaker_4SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
There's
Lockie HeissCORRESPONDENT
no happy ending in this movie.
BillHOST
Yeah, I get why.
BillHOST
They were getting pushed further and further, and I think a film I want to eventually talk about is The Scarlet Empress, which along with several films, but The Black Cat is one, The Scarlet Empress is another, along with Babyface, which we've already covered, but The Scarlet Empress is one of my favorite examples of a director being like... oh, you think you can censor us? Because at this point, the code's already kind of coming.
BillHOST
And Von Sternberg, who's the director, directing Marlena Dietrich, he creates a movie with torture, nudity, nudity and torture, BDSM, and all sorts of other stuff.
BillHOST
That's just like, you watch it today, and you're watching a film from Hollywood in 1934, just holding your head going, how
18 MINS LATER
Robert R. KellyGUEST
Yeah.
BillHOST
Because their stories were actually being told on screen at the time.
BillHOST
I mean, Babyface is a great example of this.
BillHOST
And men being terrified that women were getting ideas that they could go get a job or be independent.
Rob KellyHOST
Stan Oak was cast by Frank Capra for his 1930 film Ladies of Leisure, the beginning of a long-standing friendship between the two, working with him again in 1933's controversial pre-code The Bitter Tea of General Yen.
Rob KellyHOST
That same year, she starred in the equally risque drama Babyface about a down-to-the-luck woman who literally sleeps her way to the top.
Rob KellyHOST
She earned her first Academy Award nomination for 1937's drama Stella Dallas and showed her comedy chops in Preston Surgis' The Lady Eve opposite Henry Fonda and Howard Hawks' Ball of Fire opposite Gary Cooper, both in 1941.
Rob KellyHOST
She appeared in perhaps the greatest film noir of all time, 1944's Double Indemnity, and then back to comedy in 1945's Christmas in Connecticut.
7 MINS LATER
Jill BlakeGUEST
So many.
Jill BlakeGUEST
Like
Rob KellyHOST
ladies they talk about, right? And it's got this, the poster's got this beautiful glam shot of of barbara stanwick with like her legs kind of dangling over the logo and then i'm watching and i'm like this is a women's prison movie i didn't think like from this title and from the poster i had no idea that that's what this movie is about like baby yeah yeah i was like okay and then as i mentioned in the intro baby face i definitely wanted to talk about baby face because it is I don't want to say shocking.
Rob KellyHOST
That's a little much in this day and what shocks us at this day and age, but like a movie that's a hundred years old, that is pretty Frank about a woman who is like, yeah, I'm just, I'm banging my way literally through the top of this, of this corporation.
Rob KellyHOST
Stan Oak was cast by Frank Capra for his 1930 film Ladies of Leisure, the beginning of a long-standing friendship between the two, working with him again in 1933's controversial pre-code The Bitter Tea of General Yen.
Rob KellyHOST
That same year, she starred in the equally risque drama Babyface about a down-to-the-luck woman who literally sleeps her way to the top.
Rob KellyHOST
She earned her first Academy Award nomination for 1937's drama Stella Dallas and showed her comedy chops in Preston Surgis' The Lady Eve opposite Henry Fonda and Howard Hawks' Ball of Fire opposite Gary Cooper, both in 1941.
Rob KellyHOST
She appeared in perhaps the greatest film noir of all time, 1944's Double Indemnity, and then back to comedy in 1945's Christmas in Connecticut.
7 MINS LATER
Jill BlakeGUEST
So many.
Jill BlakeGUEST
Like
Rob KellyHOST
ladies they talk about, right? And it's got this, the poster's got this beautiful glam shot of of barbara stanwick with like her legs kind of dangling over the logo and then i'm watching and i'm like this is a women's prison movie i didn't think like from this title and from the poster i had no idea that that's what this movie is about like baby yeah yeah i was like okay and then as i mentioned in the intro baby face i definitely wanted to talk about baby face because it is I don't want to say shocking.
Rob KellyHOST
That's a little much in this day and what shocks us at this day and age, but like a movie that's a hundred years old, that is pretty Frank about a woman who is like, yeah, I'm just, I'm banging my way literally through the top of this, of this corporation.
Shelly BrisbinHOST
One of the things that you see in a number of pre-code movies is the servant or maid who is devoted to her mistress.
Shelly BrisbinHOST
We saw it with Barbara Stanwyck and Teresa Harris in Babyface, which is obviously a more interesting dynamic because Teresa Harris is black.
Nathan AldermanPANELIST
Also, you've got to put devoted and big air quotes on that one.
Shelly BrisbinHOST
Fair.