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| Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Barrat in Baby Face (1933) |
Baby Face (1933) is one of my favorite pre-Code movies. Barbara Stanwyck plays a saloon waitress who rises to the top of New York society using sex, pure and simple. She gives a mic-drop performance.
I consider her the greatest actor, male or female, of the 1930s, arguably the greatest of the Golden Age of Hollywood. To see how good she was, I highly recommend the following pre-Code films. Start with Baby Face (1933), then see The Miracle Woman (1931), then Illicit (1931), Forbidden (1932), Night Nurse (1931), and Shopworn (1932). For further evidence, see Annie Oakley (1935), Stella Dallas (1937), Remember the Night (1940), The Lady Eve (1941), Meet John Doe (1941), Ball of Fire (1941), and Double Indemnity (1944).
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Barbara Stanwyck made 86 theatrical films in her career, first as a contract player for Columbia Pictures, then Warner Bros. where she made Baby Face, and then back to Columbia, followed by many years as a freelancer. She starred in several short-lived TV shows, one long-running show, The Big Valley, and guest-starred in many others.
She was born Ruby Stevens on July 16, 1907. Her mother saw talent in young Ruby and enrolled her in dance school at the age of 3. Within a year, she and her older brother Malcolm were orphans—her mother died after being pushed off a streetcar, and her grieving father abandoned his children two weeks later, never to be seen again by anyone in the family. Their half-siblings (by their father) were grownups, married with children of their own and had no time for the orphans. Thereafter, they virtually lived in the streets.
When he was old enough, Malcolm wanted to quit school and work to support himself and his little sister. But Ruby thought he should stay in school, so at the age of 14 she began working at a series of odd jobs until just before her 16th birthday when she found work as a chorus dancer in vaudeville. Soon she was working in the Ziegfeld Follies as an actress and a chorus girl. She posed—possibly before her 18th birthday—for several risque, semi-nude photos for famed Ziegfeld photographer, Alfred Cheney Johnston.
By the time she landed her first credited film role, she had changed her acting name to Barbara Stanwyck. Also, she had married a man whose name is now lost to history, but from the early 1920s through the mid-1930s, Frank Fay was widely known and respected on Broadway as an entertainer, impresario, and producer. He was also known to drink a little too much sometimes. His biggest fan was none other than James Cagney, who thought Fay was an "utter revelation." He said, "[Fay] let us see only himself. … I tried to keep in mind that constant composure he maintained. A dynamic composure, if that's not a contradiction in terms. That was his secret. I tried to learn that."
Frank Fay and Barbara worked together on stage during their marriage, in plays and in vaudeville, even after they moved to California in 1928. But before they moved, Barbara's reputation as an actress and a star began to eclipse that of her husband. Fay's drinking worsened.
Barbara made five films with Frank Capra at Columbia Pictures, including four early in her career, during the pre-Code era. The first was Ladies of Leisure (1930). After a rough day on the set, she came home in tears, which was unlike Barbara. Capra told studio boss Harry Cohn, "She isn't an actress, she's a porcupine." Frank Fay called Capra and lit into him angrily. Capra told Fay, "She came in here with a chip on her shoulder, and went out with an ax on it.… She'll never work for me again!" But the two finished Ladies of Leisure. It was a commercial and critical success.
Capra changed the rules for filming to accommodate Barbara's unique brand of pressure she brought on herself. He wouldn't let her see the "rushes," because it interfered with her connection to her character. He rehearsed everyone else thoroughly, but saved Barbara's work for that first take, when she could and would let herself go emotionally and totally inhabit the character.
Capra brought out the best in Barbara, and their working chemistry was obvious to everyone on set, especially the crew members Capra used on each of his movies. The sound man, for instance, overheard conversations no one else heard. Meanwhile, Frank Fay's alcoholism accelerated when he suspected his wife was having an affair with Capra. (She wasn't.) Fay became emotionally and physically abusive toward Barbara. At one point, Capra asked her to leave Fay so he could marry her, but she was determinedly loyal to her husband. Capra's and Stanwyck's emotionally close relationship worked to their advantage in those early days and was rekindled in 1941 when they made their last movie together, Meet John Doe.
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This film is not a Capra film yet is nevertheless outstanding, mostly because of Stanwyck's performance and her command of every scene she's in. By the same token, the director and producers had nothing on their résumés that signaled they the talent to make a movie this good. One name stands out in the credits, however: screenwriter Darryl F. Zanuck, the man who would soon lead 20th Century Fox for nearly thirty years. In the 1920s and early 1930s, Zanuck was a legendary—and legendarily quick—screenwriter. In 1933, he was not only writing scripts for Warner Bros; he ran the studio as head of production. So, as head of production and author of the script, we can safely assume he shepherded Baby Face through production and onto the screen. Today, it is a landmark of the pre-Code era.
