Double Feature: NIGHT NURSE (1931) with BABY FACE
NIGHT NURSE (1931)
In this dramatic pre-Code mystery, sassy Barbara Stanwyck and wisecracking Joan Blondell play a pair of best friends working as private nurses who discover a fiendish plot afoot in their wealthy employer's home: the brutish chauffeur (a young, not yet moustachioed Clark Gable) plans to murder the children, marry their alcoholic mother and make off with the kids' trust funds! DIR William A. Wellman; SCR Oliver H. P. Garrett, from the novel by Grace Perkins. U.S., 1931, b&w, 72 min. NOT RATED
Followed by:
90th Anniversary
BABY FACE
In four fabulous years before a strict Motion Picture Code put the cap on audacity, Warner Bros. produced a gallery of rude, saucy films. In this invigorating film, Lily Powers (Barbara Stanwyck in a tough, cool and cutting performance) escapes to New York from an Erie, Pennsylvania, speakeasy where her father rented her out to customers. In a big-city bank, she sleeps her way to the top, leaving a heap of discarded men (and one or two corpses). Even in a version pruned for the New York state censors, BABY FACE was the definitive pre-Code statement of how the Depression created a new morality of no morality. Now the missing five minutes have been restored, and we see how the movie snarled every bit as brazenly as Stanwyck did. John Wayne, then 25, plays a supporting role as one of Lily's lovers and George Brent (DARK VICTORY, JEZEBEL) is cast as her romantic interest. (Note adapted from Richard Corliss, TIME.) DIR Alfred E. Green; SCR Gene Markey, Kathryn Scola; PROD William LeBaron, Raymond Griffith. U.S., 1933, b&w, 76 min. NOT RATED
AFI Member passes accepted.
Run Time: 150 Minutes
Opening Date: Sunday, May 14, 2023
Genre: Drama