sovay: (Cho Hakkai: intelligence)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2015-04-19 11:57 pm
Entry tags:

And see all those lovely fourteenth-century ceilings?

One week after launching, my Patreon has reached $200 a month. That means all backers get the collected e-book of reviews at the end of the year. People who know who you are, thank you so much. This is wonderful.

(I am now taking suggestions for a next milestone goal. More poetry? More reviews? I'm pretty sure I can't ask to do this full-time, but I would like to know what readers want. This remains an entirely new model of funding for me.)

The 76-minute original cut of Baby Face (1933) is amazing. I don't know if I'd even call it sordid—sexually outspoken, devastatingly cynical, with one of the most triumphantly bump-and-grindy musical leitmotivs I've heard in a long time. Every time Barbara Stanwyck's Lily Powers sleeps her way up another floor of the towering phallic skyscraper of the Gotham Bank, we get a bar of the brassy, strutting "St. Louis Blues," introduced earlier in the film by Theresa Harris' Chico. St. Louis woman with her diamond rings, oh, Lord, she leads that man of mine by her apron strings . . . For much of its runtime, the film clocks along like a comedy, inviting the audience to enjoy watching cool operator Lily game the patriarchy—for every new employee who thinks he's sneaking a perk on the side, there's another, poorer sap reeling in Lily's unrepentant wake, stone cold straight to the top. Her emotional damage is real, but so is the film's frank delight at seeing a once-victimized woman take the system that hurt her for everything she can get. I'm not surprised it couldn't pass the New York State Censorship Board. We're not meant to feel sorry for any of the men. It's unsentimental until the denouement and even then our heroine doesn't collapse into a heart of gold; nor is she punished, much as the censored version tried to give her an unhappy ending. I'm trying to think if this is the earliest film I've seen where a survivor of sexual abuse and a full-scale fallen woman gets a happy ending. The story also contains a black character who is not a stereotype and life advice from Nietzsche that actually works out. I'll try to write something more coherent tomorrow. Right now I'm just really impressed.
skygiants: Mae West (model lady)

[personal profile] skygiants 2015-04-20 01:39 pm (UTC)(link)
HAHAHA I LOVE BABY FACE. From the moment her wise old mentor figure is like "You know what you need? NIETZSCHE," I knew I was going to love Baby Face. I love Barbara Stanwyck! I love that her most important relationship is with her partner-in-crime, who is black and might pose as a maid but is definitely not one! SO DELIGHTFUL.
skygiants: Lauren Bacall on a red couch (lauren bacall says o rly)

[personal profile] skygiants 2015-04-20 09:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes! One hundred percent yes; while I love some of the style and banter and understatement that we got out of the careful limitations of the Hayes Code, and I sympathize with whichever actress it was who made the argument that once it became OK for filmmakers to put women back in the bedroom they stopped putting them anywhere else, I'm often just genuinely stunned -- in a good way -- by the kinds of stories that are told in pre-Code films.

(Oh, it's SO EASY to ship Lily and Chico. I actually remember reading that the clear relationship-of-equals and genuine friendship with Chico was one of the reasons the film was so heavily censored. I can't really think of anything else like it in any of the films I've seen from that era.)

Wild Boys of the Road sounds fascinating!
gwynnega: (lordpeter mswyrr)

[personal profile] gwynnega 2015-04-20 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Congratulations on meeting the Patreon $200 a month milestone!

That was the second time I'd seen the uncensored Baby Face, and it doesn't get less amazing. I especially like Theresa Harris as Chico.

[identity profile] nineweaving.livejournal.com 2015-04-20 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
I went straight over to YouTube and watched a clip (Lily and Chico in the boxcar). My lord, that Theresa Harris lights up the screen! I want an alternate film history in which she played--not stars, but all sorts of women.

Nine

[identity profile] handful-ofdust.livejournal.com 2015-04-20 10:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I've always wanted to see Baby Face! Great choice. And I'm so, so happy the Patreon is paying out, 'cause damn, it should.;)

I take it you've probably heard the Margot Bingham version of "St. Louis Blues," sung as Daughter Maitland, from Boardwalk Empire? If not: check check it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbzyQ6wjgdY).

[identity profile] nineweaving.livejournal.com 2015-04-21 02:44 am (UTC)(link)
I guess I'm distinguishing leads from stars, as they're more interesting to me—but yes, she could have carried off Star.

Nine

[identity profile] cucumberseed.livejournal.com 2015-04-21 02:14 pm (UTC)(link)
If you find the scene, let me know. I'd like to rip that to an mp3.

Congrats!