Baby Face Response

           Baby Face (1933) recounts the stylistic and sexually driven journey of Lily Powers (Stanwyck), an independent woman who manipulates her way to become the wife of a top official of a major New York bank through her sexual prowess and strong-headedness. Despite Lily’s deceiving actions, the viewer is nevertheless drawn to the film by the interesting subversion of gender roles, and the resilience and allure of the central female character. Her rise to power and wealth, however, has to be neutralized in order for viewers to receive the correct and moral message according to those guide-lined by the Production Code of 1930. The added boardroom ending functions to make the narrative structure of the film come full circle and strengthen the moral value of the film under the eyes of the Production Code, in that we do not see Lily ultimately benefit from her overt female sexuality.

Lily’s humanity surfaces near the end of the film as the viewer sees her abandon her material possessions in a gesture of her true love for Trenholm (Brent). Yet her punishment for her earlier transgressions must extend beyond this, and we come to learn that Lily has been demoted to the same standard of life she had before she left for New York. The viewer is left with the nagging feeling that despite the sympathy and self-recognition that Lily garners, she must still suffer for her amoral actions in order for the morality of the film to prevail. As Maltby (33) asserts, “The story describes a moral landscape of mutual exploitation, but does so within a narrative firmly constructed around the premise that such behavior was itself immoral and not to be emulated.” In an ironic fashion, Lily loses everything by acquiring the one thing she exploits: romance and love.

            The Production Code repeatedly stresses the role of films as a form of entertainment and their importance in society. As an industry that is able to reach mass audiences, writers of the Production Code believed that motion pictures had a duty to convey the moral and “right” American standards and believed that “no picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it” (1930 Hays Code 1). Baby Face’s ending had to be changed to extend to the boardroom scene to nullify any feelings of sympathy and justification towards Lily on behalf of the audience, which is accomplished. Other changes to the film presented by Maltby also function to lessen the sexuality and exploitation within the narrative. The character of Kragg needed to be played with, as his original actions seemed to condone female sexual manipulation, a message that the Code undoubtedly did not want impressionable women and youth acquiring. The film was altered to downplay Nietzsche philosophy and sexual manipulation, and consequences of unfaithfulness, materiality, deception, and exploitation were brought to the foreground. The film also makes it clear that Lily’s actions had to be reciprocated by the men she targeted. Brody, McCoy, Stevens, and Carter all suffer due to their actions, further reinforcing the idea that immoral actions were not to go unpunished. Whether losing their jobs, being killed, or attempting suicide, all of Lily’s suitors pay for their indiscretions and actions against the sanctity of marriage that the Code wanted upheld. It is clear that the Code writers were serious when it came to the narrative material of films and the effects the actions of the characters would have on the masses. Immoral actions were not to be tolerated and overlooked, and the punishment experienced by all those who acted wrongly in Baby Face, from Lily to the supporting men, sends a message that morality will ultimately overcome deception and exploitation. The audience learns through watching the development of the film’s characters and storyline, whether consciously or subconsciously, that negative actions will have negative consequences.