Baby Face

Whenever I try to explain my undying love for Barbara Stanwyck, two images come to mind: her effortless seduction of “Pottsy” (Henry Fonda) in The Lady Eve (1941), achieved by nothing more than the removal of her gloves (both the simplest and sexiest striptease in the history of movies); and her clobbering of a lecherous creep with a beer bottle (shortly after she takes a swig from it) in the inimitable Baby Face. Stanwyck’s allure—part steely, part sultry—meshes perfectly with Baby Face, which disguises its bitter cynicism beneath the glittering veneer of a comedic star vehicle. Made during the lowest depths of the Great Depression, the film finds something admirable in one woman’s spirited exploitation of a corrupt, chauvinistic American economy.  

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