Baby Face

Baby Face  (Alfred Green, 1933) The movie Baby Face is notorious for a bunch of reasons. It is "Pre-Code," that period of film-making between the introduction of sound (in 1927) and 1934 (the introduction of Shirley Temple) where Hollywood was aggressively flirting with more mature subject matter, to the point where religious groups particularly the Catholic Legion of Decency started fingering their beads in worry. Horror films became more explicit, gangster films started to rise in popularity with the one-two punch of The Great Depression and the Prohibition Era, and branched off to a sequel genre, the prison film.

And then there was sex. That subject crossed all genres. Even if the film was a cautionary tale about loose behavior you couldn't actually SHOW that loose behavior lest it then influence the behavior you're being warned about. It's the cinematic equivalent of restricting your sex education class to the subject of "abstinence."

As is usually the case with these things, "The Code" was a way to tamp down permissive, or even progressive, behavior in the movies—producers were persuaded to follow a path that was straight and narrow-minded, and so there was watchfulness for subversive behavior, political discontent, and overt sexuality. Somehow, the Marx brothers got past all that.

But, Baby Face didn't. Like a lot of pre-code films, once the Hays Office had their way, the most objectionable bits were excised like a ruptured appendix. The lucky ones were re-distributed with the shorter running times. The unlucky ones were simply re-made, sometimes scant months after the release of the original, and, with any luck, the original wasn't "filed" in the Hudson River, where in the more permissive 1980's, they started to crop up in home video releases. Baby Face was found at the Library of Congress, a "dupe negative" had survived uncut and it was first screened in 2004. 

What they saw was Barbara Stanwyck starring as Lily Powers, a waitress/bartender at the speakeasy of her corrupt father (Robert Barrat). Lily has grown up tough, not for the least reason is that dear old dad had been using her as a chief draw to keep his business going, throwing men her way since she was 14. She's contemptuous of men, and why not? The dregs of society come through her father's door and she treats their low expectations of her with a biting sarcasm that only makes them weaker. "All the kindness and gentleness in me has been killed," she says at one point. And it's been a death of a thousand cuts, every grope, every grab, every compromise. She's trapped with no way out.

But, there is one door, and one day, a potential mentor walks through it—Cragg (Alphonse Ethier), a cobbler, with a bent toward philosophy, manages to break through her hard exterior with a book he insists she reads, written by Nietzsche. He tells her that she already has the weapons and the drive ("her potentialities") to get ahead in the world.

"A woman, young, beautiful, like you, can get anything she wants in the world. Because you have Power over men! But you must use men! Not let them use you. You must be a master! Not a slave. Look, here, Nietzsche says, "All life, no matter how we idealize it, is nothing more nor less than exploitation." That's what I'm telling you! Exploit yourself! Go to some big city where you will find opportunities. Use men! Be strong! Defiant! Use men! To get the things you want."

And so she does. She kicks the sawdust of the speakeasy off her shoes and leaves the night-crawlers behind, moving to the big city and sets aim on conquering the world of commerce, finagling her way (if one can use the term) into getting a job in the secretarial pool and sleeping, and blackmailing her way up the chain of command (Interesting to see John Wayne show up as one of her early disposable conquests—it's the only time these two power-houses worked together in their careers, and, of course, Stanwyck walks all over him, so early in his career).

Set to the songs "St. Louis Blues" and the newly popularized hit "Baby Face," Baby Face deconstructs the pot-boiler to bare essentials, under-pinning it with a philosophical base (Hitler was coming to power at the time, using the same sort of philosophy) and the screen-writers (from a story by one Mark Canfield) are street-smart and uncompromising in how Lily plays the middle-management suck-up's until she finally bags the big prize—the wealthy scion (George Brent) of the bank's founder.

If there's anything wrong with Baby Face, it might be that the writers are a little too fond of the double entendre's they spew out, accompanied by a punctuating eye-roll. They and the director go to that well a few too many times (to the point where my eyes started to instinctively roll), but there are so many surprises, so many chances being taken, that you give the movie a lot of latitude in taking things so far. And Stanwyck is always a joy to watch, even this early in her career. She is one of the great (great!) screen actors to come out of the pre-code era and she had the ability to grow and mature beyong just holding the attention of the camera.

Oh. And Mark Canfield, who wrote the story? He sold the treatment to Warner Brothers for a single dollar. Then skipped the studio to make a name for himself over at 20th Century Fox. His real name, by the way, was Darryl F. Zanuck.

110 Years of the Duke

This was written on the centennial of John Wayne's birth. He was ranked #1 by Quigley Publications' annual poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars, 19 times from 1949 to 1972. Only one other Hollywood actor has surpassed that popularity--Clint Eastwood at 21. Wayne died of stomach cancer June 11, 1979.

Marion Morrison would have been 100 years old today.

Two stories to start--one certainly apochryphal, one probably true.

Story one: George Stevens was directing The Greatest Story Ever Told and in one of the egregious examples of "stunt-casting" that mars that movie is John Wayne as "The Centurion." Wayne was dressed improbably in Roman armor, and when Jesus "commends his spirit" and the heavens open, Wayne had one line, looking at the cross--"Surely this was the Son of God!" They did a take and Stevens wasn't satisfied. "It needs more, John! This is Jesus and he's just died...I need more awe...can you put more awe in it, John?" Take two: Wayne looks up at the cross and says...."Awww, surely this was the Son of God!"

Story two: Ward Bond was a member of director John Ford's stock company of players. He was in the great majority of Ford's movies playing many different roles. He was also, like Wayne and Walter Brennan, a vitriolic right-winger and anti-communist, who in the hey-day of the 50's red-scare would brow-beat members of cast and crew into signing loyalty oaths. A crew-member came up to Ford and complained bitterly about Bond's behavior. "Yeah!" Ford growled. "Bond's a son of a bitch, alright! But he's our son of a bitch." As in: "He's a jerk, but forgive him." As in "We've all got our faults." As in: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

I love John Wayne. And I despise John Wayne. But I love John Wayne.

I love John Wayne movies, and admire greatly the performances of John Wayne in them. That George Stevens story is funny...and plays into the myth of Wayne being a poor actor...something Wayne was only too quick to contribute to. "I don't act. I re-act," he would say. It never hurts to lower expectations, I guess. But one need only look at how directors could only cast him against strong co-stars--if they didn't, Wayne would blow everybody away like a prairie mist. Wayne had to work with players wise with their own tricks before the camera--the Clifts, the Brennans, the O'Hara's, the Mitchums and Douglases and Holdens--or he'd walk all over them with a simple glare. All Wayne had to do to make his point was NOT look at an actor. Even sick and weak, Wayne in "The Shootist" had to be balanced with a cast top-heavy with strong actor-personas: Jimmy Stewart, Lauren Bacall, Richard Boone, Harry Morgan, Hugh O'Brian. They had to be--for Wayne's last film they were playing against Wayne and his legend. I'm completely unapologetic in saying that John Wayne was a master of his craft and the more I see of his work, the more I believe it.

I also think John Wayne was an immature man with a false sense of what being a man was: he was a bully, a bone-head, and a complete fake, espousing Great American Ideals, while holding to none of them personally. The actor who portrayed "America's Fighting Man" never joined the military, opting to stay out of World War II claiming marriage, and because he didn't want to go in "as a private" (and with most of Hollywood's leading men off to war, commission or no--it allowed a vacuum that Wayne was only too eager to fill--he feathered his nest very well during the war, something that John Ford, Wayne's father-figure, would needle him about constantly). John Wayne, American, was married three times and all three times his marriages were contentious, and rumored to be abusive. John Wayne, hero of the West, was never a rough and tumble cowboy, but a football player and actor who grew up in California, and lived a very privileged life. It was all a charade. But I love him in those movies, and I can't get enough. A John Wayne movie can even bring a tear to my eye.*

I love John Wayne. And I despise John Wayne.

And Marion Morrison? Well, now, there's the mystery.

Because Marion Morrison of Winterset, Iowa, born 100 years ago today, was a football player who worked on John Ford's crew nd did the occasional line on-camera until Raoul Walsh picked him to star in The Big Trail and changed his name to John Wayne. And though Marion Morrison appeared in many many films, his greatest role was as "John Wayne," actor and patriot--the persona that never really existed but was portrayed as if it did, an American Myth. And even that role I admire and wonder at--the performance of a lifetime--though the things said in that guise could be alarmingly knuckle-headed. God and Country, sure. But "the Indians shoulda got outta the way...they were selfish," how retarded is that? Still, when the Harvard Lampoon invited him to accept their bogus "Brass Balls" award, Morrison went...as Wayne...and bowled them over with his, by-now, well-learned self-deprecating humor. It was a day to show up and not take anything too seriously. He got as many laughs as jeers from the Hah-vahd boys, and there's something great abou that. "Brass Balls," indeed.

And then there are the stories that keep popping up. New truths punctuating the Myth. How "John Wayne" would publicly rail against communists and want them to all go back to Russia...but when Carl Foreman, blacklisted writer-producer, came back from self-exile producing films in Europe, and encountered Morrison at a dinner party he was astonished when Wayne came over to his table and gushed and made a fuss over him in front of Foreman's kids...like they were old buddies. Effusive in his praise and admiration. By-gones. There's the rabble-rouser John Wayne who would carouse and whore on-set, but who won the admiration of that most judgmental of actresses, Katherine Hepburn. There's the Marion Morrison who got along famously with wildly liberal director Don Siegel (who would needle Wayne on The Shootist set by wearing a peace medallion) and send Siegel's mother in hospital fresh flowers every day. There's the Marion Morrison, who read black-listed author Marguerite Roberts' screenplay for True Grit and declared it "perfect." Marion Morrison had less bluster than "John Wayne" did.

I encounter those stories more and more and marvel at them. And marvel at how Marion Morrison maintained "John Wayne" all those years. How he became greater...improbably greater...than himself in that persona. How he "sold" the myths and made you believe. There's real artistry there...beyond the screen roles.

So, I marvel at Marion Morrison...at John Wayne...and the dichotomy, and the contradictions...the complications embodied there in the one man. And wonder what's Myth and what's Truth. A little bit of both, as we all are. Just bigger. Broader. In gifts, and in failings.

And I go on contemplating that as I watch him stride across the screen in that walk that made him look like he was balancing on a ledge...or maybe a tight-rope. And I smile and admire him, despite everything else, say what you will about him.

But he's our son of a bitch.

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* I'm not alone here. Director Jean Luc Godard hated everything about Wayne, but there's a moment in The Searchers that so moved Godard that it "filled him with love" for the actor.

Here's the afterword I added the first time I posted this: 

Afterword: John Wayne died 30 years ago, and I have vivid memories of that. It was a Saturday, I was living in Longview Washington working as a disc jockey and driving home from my shift when the news came over the radio. Death. Cancer. Long fight. I was so swept up in grief that I had to pull off to the side of the road and weep. I'd lost my father a couple years before and was probably sensitive to loss at the time. But this one, this time, was John Wayne. I had no connection to him other than his roles on-screen, although there was ample opportunity to have met him when he was in Seattle filming McQ** or come up to the Sound for one of his frequent fishin'-and-drinkin' sortee's...in a converted mine sweeper! The marina he tied up to is named in his honor.

 He was ranked #1 by Quigley Publications' annual poll of the Top Ten Money Making Stars, 19 times from 1949 to 1972. Only one other Hollywood actor has surpassed that popularity--Clint Eastwood at 21. 

Wayne died of stomach cancer June 11, 1979.

His gravestone reads: "Tomorrow is the most important thing in life.  comes into us at midnight very clean.  It's perfect when it arrives and puts itself in our hands.  It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."


In interviews, he favored "Feo, fuerte y formal."  Spanish for "Ugly, Strong and Dignified."

* I did have conversations with an actor who'd work with him on McQ, and got the usual: "Bigger than life," Big man," "Gregarious, always laughing" and this..."He had tiny feet!"

Don't Make a Scene: From Russia With Love

The Story: Here's a scene from the second James Bond film, From Russia With Love, away back in 1963.

Spy stories are full of acronym's, so bear with us for a moment through this first course of alphabet soup. There was never a S.P.E.C.T.R.E. (The Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion) and SMERSH (Shmiert Spionem--"Death to Spies") only existed briefly, but that didn't stop Ian Fleming. SMERSH had been an assassination squad in the KGB, but was disbanded after the Second World War. SPECTRE was an organization that Fleming and Kevin McClory dreamed up to try and make it easier to get their James Bond spy film (what would become Thunderball) into the Russian market. So, when Bond did make it to the silver-screen, thanks to producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, they had somewhat the same idea. They replaced the Russians as Bond's main opponent, and substituted SPECTRE. That complicated things when it came to From Russia With Love, the second film in the "007" series. Fleming had Bond being lured by a beautiful courier, who wanted to defect to the West with something Her Majesty's Secret Service desperately wanted...the Russian decoding machine, the Spektor.

Confused? You should be.

SPECTRE (the fictional organization) had been a part of Fleming's novels post-Thunderball, and the producers wanted to divert attention from the Russians as foes, too (you never know when a film-market might open up). So, they complicated the plot, using double agents for SMERSH, working for SPECTRE, to steal the newly-christened "Lektor" decoding machine for the purposes of the blackest of mails, and eliminating the British agent who messed up their missile-toppling scheme in the last movie (Sean Connery is James Bond).

But Bond has help--a briefcase from "Q" branch that contains everything but a lavatory sink* which just might come in handy...for the entire running time of the movie. But never more so than here. Essential to the plot is assassin Donovan "Red" Grant (Robert Shaw), who tails Bond on his mission, dispatching all who might get in Bond's way retrieving the Lektor. Grant then eliminates Bond's contact aboard the Orient Express and prepares the End Game.

Yeah, it might be the obvious choice to pick the Laser Beam scene from Goldfinger, but I have a lot of affection for this scene between Connery and Shaw—both at the top of their game with an excellent script and the proper amount of gritty danger. It's clear from Shaw's performance that Grant is a psychopath, and it would be a long, long time before Bond would seem to be in any credible danger when confronting a villain. Here, the scene is tense, and Shaw, by turns minimal and over-the-top, gives Bond, and the audience, a lot to worry about.

The Set-up: SMERSH assassin Donovan "Red" Grant has killed James Bond's contact, Nash, and assumed his identity. Bond, having never met the man but receiving the proper identification code is none the wiser. At dinner, "Nash" orders red wine with his fish, and slips Russian defector Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) a sleep-inducing powder. Returning to their stateroom aboard the Orient Express, she collapses on the bed, and "Nash" and Bond retire to the connecting room. There, while "Nash" explains the proposed escape route, he knocks Bond unconscious and disarms him. Bond wakes up to find himself on the business end of Grant's pistol.


"Red" Grant: Keep still.
Grant: All right then, get up on your knees.
Grant: Put your hands in your pockets.
Grant: Keep 'em there.
James Bond: Red wine with fish. Well, that should have told me something.
Grant: You may know the right wines, but you're the one on your knees.
Grant: How does it feel, old man?
Bond: "Old man?" Is that what you chaps in SMERSH call each other?
Grant: SMERSH?
Bond: Of course....SPECTRE. Then it wasn't the Russians' show at all. You've been playing us off against each other, haven't you? And it was SPECTRE who killed the Russian agent in the Mosque. You?
Grant: Mm-hmm.
Bond: Kerim and the other man?
Grant: Mm-hmm.
Bond: And Nash?
Grant: Oh, I don't mind talking. I get a kick out of watching the great James Bond finding out what a bloody fool he's been making of himself. We're pro's, Mr. Bond.
Grant: We sweated your recognition code...
Grant: ...out of one of your men in Tokyo...
Grant: ...before he died. I've been keeping tabs on you.
Grant: I've been your guardian angel.
Grant: Saved your life at the gypsy camp.
Bond: Oh. Yes. I'm much obliged.
Grant: We were keeping you alive until you could get us the Lektor.
Bond: So, you had me deliver it to you on a plate. It's brilliant. Go on. I'm fascinated.
Grant: Now that we've got it, you and the girl are expendable. Between here and Trieste.
Bond: The girl? Isn't she SPECTRE, too?
Grant: No. She thinks she's doing it all for Mother Russia. She takes her orders from Colonel Klebb.
Bond: But, Rosa Klebb's Russian. Head of operations for SMERSH.
Grant: Was. Klebb works for SPECTRE now. The girl doesn't know that.
Bond: Well then, why kill her?
Grant: Orders. That's only half of it, old man.
Grant: Here's a roll of film. She'll have this in her handbag.
Grant: And on you, they'll find this letter.
Grant: It's from her, threatening to give the film to the press unless you marry her for helping you get the Lektor.
Bond: What film?
Grant: Taken in the bridal suite at your hotel. Something else the girl didn't know about—or you.
Bond: Must be a pretty sick collection of minds to dream up a plan like that.
Grant: You see the headlines? "British Agents Murders Beautiful Russian Spy Then Commits Suicide!"
Bond: Tell me, which lunatic asylum did they get you out of?
Grant: Don't make it any tougher of yourself.
(Grant comes forward and back-hands Bond across the face)
Grant: My orders are to kill you and deliver the Lektor. How I do it's my business. It'll be slow and painful.
Bond: How much are they paying you?
Grant: What's it to you?
Bond: We'll double it.
Grant: Your word of honor? As an English gentleman?
Grant: The first one won't kill you.
Grant: Nor the second. Not even the third.
Grant: Not 'til you crawl over here and you kiss my foot!
Bond: how 'bout a cigarette?
Grant: Not a chance.
Bond: I'll pay for it.
Grant: What with?
Bond: 50 gold sovereigns.
Grant: Where are they?
Bond: Up there in my case.
Grant: You show me.
(Bond opens the case carefully, turning the latches horizontally as "Q" described.)
Bond: Here you are. What about that cigarette?
Grant: Throw 'em down there.Grant: Any more in the other case?
Bond: I should imagine so, it's a standard kit. I'll have a look.
Grant: Put your hands back in your pockets.
(Bond watches pensively as Grant throws one latch, then the other)
(Grant opens the cases with the latches turned vertically, and when the case is opened, the tear-gas cartridge explodes in his face. A fight ensues...)

From Russia With Love

Words by Ian Fleming, Richard Maibaum, and Johanna Harwood

Pictures by Ted Moore and Terence Young

From Russia With Love is available on MGM and Fox Home Video.

* What's in that black attache case? What isn't? There's a secret compartment, a hidden throwing knife, a compartment for holding a disassembled Armalite rifle with scope, extra ammunition in the skids, strips of 50 gold sovereigns in the side panels, and a magnetized tin of talc' which is actually a tear-gas canister that will explode in the face of anyone who opens the case in an unprescribed manner. Handy.