Clevercell Very disappointing...

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Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

skylarmoffat Before reading any reviews on this movie I was shocked to see what it turned out to be. A modern day R rated film. A young girl being pimped out by her father, one day turns the tables to become an powerful woman sleeping her way to the top, getting jewels, and not taking the easy way out along the way.

Antonius Block There are several things that make this salacious pre-Code film worth watching, starting with Barbara Stanwyck, of course, who with her eyes and sexy come-on's seduces man after man to get ahead, literally f'ing her way to the top. There are some fantastic scenes from the beginning, where she fends off the advances of one man at her father's bar by pouring coffee on his hand, and explodes with anger at her father for essentially pimping her out since the age of 14. It's when he perishes in a fire that she has to fend for herself in the world. I'm not a big fan of John Wayne, but for those who are, you'll see him in an early role as one of her men along the way, and it was great to see Theresa Harris, who plays her maid. Lastly, I liked the elements of Nietzschean philosophy that at least form a basis for, and perhaps attempt to justify, Stanwyck using sex to get what she needs and wants out of men.On the other hand, the film is quite cynical and pretty linear in its plot. Stanwyck simply screws man after man – starting with a railroad worker who catches her hitching a ride to New York, and ending with an executive in a skyscraper. The film is brazen about this, and at one point she has sex in the ladies room, so if you're looking for elements of romance, this is not your film. How interesting is it that these "gold digger" themes are so common in films of this period, with men "victimized", when the far more prevalent situation in offices is sexual harassment, the inverse. While Stanwyck is one of my favorite actresses of the period, and it was exciting to see her in this steamy role, with those "take me" eyes and slow lead-ins to kisses, it's really rather hard to like any of the characters. The ending was a lame effort to patch some of that up, and didn't work for me. There are several Barbara Stanwyck pre-code films I would recommend over this one, including Night Nurse (1931), Ladies They Talk About (1933), and The Purchase Price (1932). If you're looking for high-wattage pre-Code shock value, though, this one is hard to top.

caitlinestes Alfred E. Greens film, Baby Face, gives the viewer a lot of different things to think about. Starting the film with Lily Powers being harassed by her own father's friends made me mad especially because he encouraged it. Instead of men taking advantage of Lily she realizes she can use her power to take advantage of men. The way Lily is portrayed as the girl sleeping her way to the top is stereotypical to a women and not a man. Even though it was her idea to sleep with her bosses it still had a bad reputation for women in general. Baby Face is an eye opening film and the viewers of the time had never seen any film like it before.

RUSkiddingPete I was very surprised by this movie, I really enjoyed it. Lily was the person that I was routing for at times, and other times I didn't know what to think. A woman so beautiful that almost any man will fall in love with her, but she's almost evil, she can get away with almost anything if only she sleeps with a lot of guys. She smiled when her father died, and she gets between peoples relationships. This film is so different from anything that I've seen before. At the end when she denied that mans love, then when she returned to him and found him dead with a gun next him was almost sickening. This was a fantastic movie and I couldn't stop watching.