Baby Face (1933): Baby Puts The Censors In A Corner
A decade before Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck brought the Pre-Code era to a controversial close with her sultry turn in Baby Face.
A decade before Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck brought the Pre-Code era to a controversial close with her sultry turn in Alfred E. Green’s Baby Face. It’s thus a fitting choice for the final instalment of our Pre-Code gangster series.
Lily’s assertive, sexually liberated persona was absolutely an archetype for the hard-boiled femme fatales of the 1940’s and 50’s. But beyond these characteristics, few aspects of Baby Face foretell the conventions or aesthetics of the Film Noir period.
