3 Movies That Prove Pre-code Barbara Stanwyck is the Best Barbara Stanwyck.
They don’t call her “sexy Stanny” for nothing.
I’m a tough old broad from Brooklyn. I intend to go on acting until I’m ninety and they won’t need to paste my face with make-up. — Barbara Stanwyck
Before there was such a thing as “method” acting, Barbara Stanwyck had already perfected the art of the lifelike performance. During the 1930s, Stanwyck made a string of movies that are emblematic of the “pre-code” era — that period of time when movies were deliciously naughty and fairly free of studio censorship — and remain fresh and exciting today because of Stanwyck’s ability to portray raw, human emotion without any hint of insincerity. Even if you don’t believe the plot for even a New York minute, you believe Barbara right down to the bone.
Warner Archive’s Forbidden Hollywood Collection contains three prime examples of Stanwyck at her sizzling, sexiest, pre-code best: Baby Face, Night Nurse, and The Purchase Price, all streaming right now.
These films feature her as tough-skinned and sometimes tawdry working dames — roles that could easily be clichéd by lesser actresses in films that often went way over the top. But Stanwyck infuses biting emotion and complicated vulnerability that makes her screen presence in these films nothing short of magnetic. There is never a moment she doesn’t own each and every frame of film she occupies.
“Career is too pompous a word,” Stanwyck once said. “It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for what I love doing.” — Barbara Stanwyck
The fact that we believe everything she does has much to do with Barbara Stanwyck’s own personal background. She was widely regarded as Hollywood’s consummate professional: a hard-working nose-to-the-grind career woman who, at the same time, shied away from words like ‘career’.
For Brooklyn born Ruby Stevens, work was always a foremost part of her life. She spent most of her childhood (or lack thereof) in foster homes after losing her mother to a tragic accident after which she was subsequently abandoned by her father, which forced her to start working for herself at the tender age of 13.
“I just wanted to survive and eat and have a nice coat.” — Barbara Stanwyck
These turbulent, formative years are almost certainly what equipped her for a life spent exploring the deeply complex nature of human behavior, and is absolutely responsible for her gift at playing girls from the wrong side of the tracks.
Teenage Ruby Stevens entered the chorus as a Ziegfeld Girl and at age 19 she was christened “Barbara Stanwyck” by the producer of a Broadway play named Willard Mack who not only cast her, but also rewrote her part to take advantage of her considerable talent.
Stanny’s rise to film stardom was not a case of being just a pretty face — she had unquestionable talent as an actress. And while Stanwyck was a beautiful woman with an undeniable sensual presence, she was not the conventional Hollywood beauty. It was therefore her talent that caught the eye of a film producer and, with fellow Broadway actor and husband Frank Fay, brought her to Hollywood.
Although the marriage with Fay soon failed, her career did not. She signed on with Columbia Pictures after coming to national attention with Frank Capra’s Ladies of Leisure (1930), and began to solidly establish herself as an actress to be reckoned with.
What’s fascinating about this pre-code part of her career, is that despite her tough-talking roles, sometimes amoral roles, she was already demonstrating an impressive emotional range, digging deep within her own personal past — as young as she was — to bring intense emotional complexity to even the most brazen of characters.
By the late ‘30s’, Stanwyck would be one of the most popular leading actresses in Hollywood and by the 1940s, a legend — yet she would never win a competitive Oscar. Toward the end of Barbara Stanwyck’s life, the Academy would bestow Stanwyck with an honorary Oscar for “superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting.” But for Barbara Stanwyck fans, this is too little, too late. Because she not only ‘contributed’ to the art of screen acting, she defined what it meant to be an actor.
And it all started here.
NIGHT NURSE (1931)
Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, and Clark Gable are delightfully entertaining in this Pre-Code corker. When Lora Hart (Stanwyck) accepts a job as a private nurse for the wealthy Mrs. Richey (Charlotte Merriam, wonderfully exaggerated) she starts to suspect Mrs. Richey’s chauffeur (a sneering Clark Gable) of keeping Mrs. Richey soused so she won’t notice the state of her children. Fearing murder is afoot, Lora attempts to save the children with the aid of a kindly bootlegger (Ben Lyon), and her wisecracking roommate (Joan Blondell). Watch it now.
THE PURCHASE PRICE (1932)
Barbara Stanwyck plays a sultry torch singer on the lam in this spicy Pre-Code drama. After getting engaged to a society swell, Joan Gordon promptly quits her nightclub gig and kicks gangster boyfriend Ed Fields (Lyle Talbot) to the curb. But when her past catches up with her, Joan ends up sans fiancé and on the run from her hoodlum ex. Hiding out in Montreal, Joan hooks up with a naïve farmboy (George Brent) and sets up an arranged marriage. But the plains of North Dakota aren’t big enough to hide a life like Joan’s and Ed soon comes calling. Watch it now.
BABY FACE (1933)
This Pre-Code scorcher sees Lilly (Barbara Stanwyck) sleeping her way from basement speakeasy bartender to the top floor of a New York office building, floor by floor. Bank manager Jimmy McCoy (John Wayne) finds her a job in the bank only to be cast aside as she hooks up with the bank’s president. This film was selected by the National Film Preservation Foundation in 2005 to be included in the National Film Registry. Watch it now.
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