By Odienator
Barbara Stanwyck needed only a look to inform you of her less than noble intentions. With a raised eyebrow, a lowered eyelid or a bit lower lip, Stanwyck filled the screen with the promise of sex, a promise even the Hays Office couldn't censor. The come-hither look was perfected by Stanwyck, and when I saw her onscreen, I knew the men she cast that gaze upon would toss better judgment and common sense to the wind to accept its invitation.
Men fantasized about Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne and Rita Hayworth, and while they were beautiful, they were the masculine idea of distant sexiness; a beauty that, even in their wildest dreams, was just out of reach of their horny, desperate grasp. Barbara Stanwyck was the opposite, a feminist idea of earthly hotness. She was sexy because she was attainable; not only was she within reach of your grasp, she'd grab you herself, slam you down on the bed and screw you unconscious. And then she would take your wallet.
Stanwyck played roles where you had to believe that no man, even the most devout, upstanding citizen, could resist doing her bidding. She had to be smart enough to get you to surrender body and soul. Once you slept with Monroe, you could carve that notch into your bedpost and move on; Stanwyck was a mindfuck that stayed with you long after the post-coital cigarette.
I could say that today's "5 for the Day" is a celebration of the versatility of Ms. Stanwyck, but that would be a lie. It was merely an excuse to spend time in the glow of her gaze, imagining what would happen if I could jump into the screen and answer it.
1. Baby Face (1931): Baby Face tells the story of Lily Powers (Stanwyck), a woman who sleeps her way to the top, leaving the destroyed lives of the men she seduces by the wayside. The screenplay blames Nietzsche for her actions, but Stanwyck was just following the adage made famous years later by James Brown: A woman got to use what she got to get just what she wants. This pre-Hays Code movie has plot points that would have killed the censor; Stanwyck was prostituted by her father from the age of 14, and more than one man puts his hands someplace they weren't allowed to on Kate Hepburn. Highlights include Stanwyck giving the come hither look to the luckiest heavy-set accountant in the world, and the scene where Stanwyck answers a man grabbing her breasts by smashing a beer bottle over his head. The nonchalant way she continues enjoying her beer afterwards is priceless.
2. Double Indemnity (1944): In Burt Prelutsky's 1996 interview with Billy Wilder, Prelutsky asks Wilder if Stanwyck has sex with Fred MacMurray when she first visits his apartment. "Of course," says Wilder, "and very good sex, or how could she persuade such a man to kill her husband?" For MacMurray, that sex was the highlight of his relationship with Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson, but for Phyllis, the orgasm occurs as she watches MacMurray strangle her husband. Watch for Wilder's close-up of Stanwyck's face while the murder is occurring—it is simultaneously sexy and terrifying. Very good sex indeed.
3. The Lady Eve (1941): Stanwyck has a "dual" role here, both as con artist Jean Harrington (note that last name...then see All About Eve) and Harrington's creation, the titular Lady Eve. Henry Fonda's Charlie is the object of both their affections, and he's a dead man walking. Preston Sturges, as he would with The Miracle Of Morgan's Creek a little later, gives the finger to the censor, most notably in two scenes showing Jean working her magic on poor Charlie. In one, she puts her stocking-clad leg damn close to Fonda's face, and in the other, she gets her body even damn closer to Charlie in the film's famous chaise lounge seduction scene, a 4-minute unbroken shot that zeroes in on Henry Fonda's paralyzed face and body—he's the visual interpretation of a boner. Sturges' in-jokes and visual cues about snakes add to the movie's phallic undercurrent: Watch how the cartoon snake goes through the O in Preston Sturges' name in the credits.
4. Forty Guns (1957): "She's a high-ridin' woman with a whip," sings Jidge Carroll about Stanwyck's Jessica Drummond, the rich rancher who controls the county in Sam Fuller's brutal western classic. Stanwyck's entrance in the film is thrilling; dressed in black atop a white horse, leading her "forty gun" posse, she speeds past a coach carrying marshall/love interest Barry Sullivan, scaring his horses and making her presence known. Though middle-aged by this time, Stanwyck proved she still had the gaze. When Sullivan interrupts dinnertime at her ranch in order to issue a warrant to her brother, Stanwyck bites her lip, lowers her eyes and mutters an amused "Hmmph." My knees went weak. Later in the film, 50-year old Stanwyck performs a spectacular stunt on a horse, and even takes a bullet like John Wayne. Fuller's camera lingers on these sequences; he refuses to disrespect his lead actress because she's a little older than Hollywood allows. Even her dialogue sounds like vintage Stanwyck: "I need a strong man to carry out my orders," she tells Sullivan. "And a weak man to take them," he replies. He knows the score.
5. Sorry, Wrong Number (1948): Just for variety, here's a picture where Stanwyck isn't in control. She spends most of the film in bed, a victim of a psychosomatic (or fake?) illness, while trying to figure out who the victim is in the murder plot she overheard on the phone. As she slowly pieces together that it might be her, she goes all Susan Hayward on us (though better than Hayward ever could). It's in the flashback sequence, where we discover how she snared hubby Burt Lancaster, that we see the hot Stanwyck of old; she literally snatches Lancaster from another woman. The "Sorry, wrong number" ending must have been a shocker in 1948, breaking the Hays Office rule that killers must be punished. Like I said, not even the censor could control Barbara Stanwyck.
Absolutely on "Baby Face" and "Double Indemnity," but I'd substitute "Night Nurse," "The Miracle Woman" and "Ball of Fire" for the other three.
EC, Great choices! I would have chosen Ball of Fire as well, but I'd already written about that film here.
"…he's the visual interpretation of a boner."
That is so true.
Is there a better comic heroine than Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve? I certainly don't know of one.
Odienator, your articles are great.
Interesting to observe how so many artists/actors/musicians from bygone times have so much about them to appreciate. Looking back provides additional insight of their work.
As it seems that current performers are lacking in texture. They follow the Marilyn Model. eg: Britney.
Again it is always a treat to read your articles, hope to find more throughout the year! rock on odie.
I quite like "Night Nurse," but I'd find it hard to put it above "Lady Eve" or "Indemnity," particularly as the former puts Stanwyck's comedic chops on display.
But I would put in a vote for "All I Desire." I feel that this is a much unappreciated Douglas Sirk gem, in many ways much more radical about women and marriage than "All that Heaven Allows" (I always associate the two, because both opening with the exact same shot panning across a town center.) Stanwyck leaves her husband to pursue a career on the stage; her husband raises the children and her career fails, so she eventually returns to the town. Sirk has the townsfolk try to turn this situation into a morality play, while allowing Stanwyck and Richard Carlson share much more thoughtful scenes that address what it means to make a marriage work. Stanwyck's performance is crucial because she manages to retain an inner strength even while admitting she has made some mistakes. It's similar to the type of inner resolve she brought to "Clash by Night," made the previous year. Unlike the gentleman commenting on "All I Desire" on the IMDB, I slightly prefer it to the later Sirk/Stanwyck "There's Always Tomorrow" (though that's a film to keep in mind if you ever do a Fred MacMurray list, odie) — but I really wish both films were on DVD, so I could verify my opinion.
Anon
Beautiful, Odie. I hope you will enjoy my Babs' Foot Fetish Page, part of my Stanwyck shrine/gallery, with a background I made from Sugarpuss O'Shea's sparkling dress.
DH: Is there a better comic heroine than Barbara Stanwyck in The Lady Eve?
She's certainly near the top. I'm partial to Claudette Colbert in It Happened One Night as one of the very few who bests Stanwyck in Eve.
Interesting to observe how so many artists/actors/musicians from bygone times have so much about them to appreciate.
This is so true, Charlie Parsley. My Mom and grandmother introduced me to all these old actors and actresses from their youth. Imagine the figures of the past who will be introduced to the kids of tomorrow?
Kid: Mommy, who's that lady with no panties on?
Mommy: Oh, that's Britney Spears! She was from my time.
Kid: What about that girl? What's wrong with her?
Mommy: Oh, that's Tara Reid. She was always shi–uh, I mean drunk.
Thanks for the compliments!
Anon, you hit the right director for this Douglas Sirk fan. Since I hadn't seen those movies in years, I didn't feel convinced I could write about them clearly. Thanks for bringing them up.
Mr. Emerson, thanks for the compliment and the link to your site. I enjoyed reading your tribute to Ms. Stanwyck, and having all those men kneeling at her feet is the rare form of blatant symbolism I can tolerate.
By the way, our great layout man here at the House, Mssr. Jeffrey Hill, found your site before you linked us to it; the picture of Stanwyck that opens this piece is from there. Credit is most certainly due. If anything, it sent me back to your site to look at the rest of the pictures!
The Forty Guns DVD needs a blooper segment. That dialogue was so over the top that it's hard to imagine Stanwyck & Sullivan keeping a straight face. Half the time, she seemed to have a smirk ready to go with each line, but she never pulled the trigger.
That film also vaguely reminds me of Cattle Queen of Montana, where she (as Sierra Nevada Jones) has to fight for her claim. I guess Stanwyck was just born to play cattle queens.
Thanks to your article, I feel an urgent need to see Baby Face. And The Lady Eve just to see Henry Fonda as a boner. I'd invite you, Odie, but your passion for the woman is such that I'm afraid I'd need to get a drop cloth.
Odie –
This rocked. I've only recently been introduced to the charms of Ms. Stanwyck, via #'s 2 & 3. You've now given me more suggestions and I thank you for it.
Cool piece, Odie…BS is the best. I really think that Barbara Stanwyck is the greatest American film actress. She had the largest range, she worked with practically all the great directors, and she somehow kept her emotional immediacy genuine and fiery all the way to the end of her career.
All of these are great choices. Also love two Capras: "The Miracle Woman," where she plays a compromised evangelist, "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" —-talk about erotic!–where she dreams of being ravished by Nils Asther's General. They had an affair, apparently, her and Capra, and it shows.
She's very touching in the underrated, nearly forgotten "Ever in My Heart," more than touching as the reformed thief in the Leisen/Sturges "Remember the Night." More erotica: her epochal striptease number, "Take it Off the E-String, Play it on the G-String" in "Lady of Burlesque," where she solves murders and does cartwheels.
Later Stanwyck gold: "the scissor scene" in that twisted Freudian/Mann western "The Furies." Two amazing Evil Barbara moments: pushing Anthony Quinn under an oil dyke in the terrific meller "Blowing Wild," and yanking away Eddie. G's crutches in a burning house at the end of "The Violent Men." And her pairing with Elvis in "Roustabout" is surprisingly effective–they have chemistry.
Finally, two bookends: the look on her face as she watches Lolly get married at the end of "Stella Dallas" (her personal favorite). And, last but certainly not least, her deeply scary plea for senior citizen eroticism during her last monologue in "The Thornbirds."
There's no other actress who could have played that scene so well. And yes, it's because she never relinquished her sexuality…maybe it stayed potent because it was so unfulfilled off-screen?
Victoria Wilson has been working on a bio of Stanwyck for 20 years…one of those legendary "I need another advance" things you marvel at. How many more times does she need to look at every episode of "The Big Valley?"
One more for the road, from "Golden Boy":
"This your girl?" asks a hood.
"I'm my mother's girl," snaps Stany.
Dan: More erotica: her epochal striptease number, "Take it Off the E-String, Play it on the G-String" in "Lady of Burlesque," where she solves murders and does cartwheels.
I don't think I've ever seen this movie! Play it on her G-string?!
(Odie bursts into flames)
Great suggestions, Dan! I must revisit some of your choices.
Jeffrey: The Forty Guns DVD needs a blooper segment. That dialogue was so over the top that it's hard to imagine Stanwyck & Sullivan keeping a straight face.
Stanwyck could make the most over-the-top dialogue sound credible. Imagine my pal Joan Crawford with that dialogue. The horse would fall over laughing, and the Warner Bros. logo would shatter!
Good stuff. I'll take Ball of Fire over Snow White and the Seven Dwarves anytime–Snow White with all the sex appeal of the Evil Queen.
And I do like her in the heroine role of Meet John Doe. She does that Capra heroine with just a hint of the kind of amorality that'll bloom in Double Indemnity. Later she goes goody-two-shoes on us, but Stanwyk's good enough to pull even that off…
And agreed on Thorn Birds. It's a laughable melodrama, but Stanwyk even there is a powerhouse.
Noel: And I do like her in the heroine role of Meet John Doe. She does that Capra heroine with just a hint of the kind of amorality that'll bloom in Double Indemnity.
Another great performance. Maybe I can sweet-talk Matt into a Capra piece at some point. (Speaking of which, you're s'posed to back me up on Stanwyck love, Matt! Where you at?)
As for the Thorn Birds, it's good trash. But I was more satisfied seeing the merge of trash and Stanwyck that was The Colbys!
Hey, Odie–
Sorry, I've been keeping my head down this week, trying not to mess up my new gig, mostly.
But here's my five:
1. "Double Indemnity." Because, damn.
2. "Baby Face." Because damn, damn, damn, damn. I don't think this one should be shown very often; it tends to melt projectors.
3. "Ball of Fire." This one's borderline for me because of all the great Stanwyck films, it comes closest to making her volcanic sexuality charming. But she's so funny in it, how can I resist? As Variety said in its original 1941 review, "A simple gag is hardly enough on which to string 110 minutes of film. And that's all – one funny situation – that Samuel Goldwyn's director and writers have to support 'Ball of Fire.' It's sufficient, however, to provide quite a few chuckles."
4. "The Lady Eve." Jean Harrington is a great Stanwyck part, and Sturges understood Stanwyck's essence. ("I need him like the ax needs the turkey.")
5. "Stella Dallas." A bullshit movie, really — basically a Christ fantasy for narcissist mommies — but boy, does she sell it. She intuitively seems to grasp the class resentment at the heart of the story — better than the dialogue does, frankly.
Stanwyck was totally real, and that's what made her great. She didn't sell a fantasy, she sold human potential — the noble kind, the naughty kind, and both bundled together.
Another one from Jean Harrington: "They say a moonlit deck is a woman's business office."
OMGosh! That's the best "blog" I've ever read! I have always thought Barbara Stanwyck was the best there ever was. She was my "idol" growing up. Yes, every kid had one. Yes, everyone made fun of me. Yes, I was too young to know who she was and my friends would say "Barbara Who?…Is she that singer with the big nose?" Did I care? No.
I've seen all but 2 of her movies and that's only because I can't find them. I cried for weeks when she died.
The only time I ever "played hooky" or "cut school" was one day when I was in high school and it wasn't to go to the beach or anything a "normal" high-schooler would cut school for…it was to watch a Barbara Stanwyck-a-thon on AMC. They showed 4 movies that day and one of them was one I hadn't seen. Of course, I HAD to see it.
Not only was she the BEST actress ever, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone she ever worked with, from directors to cameramen, who didn't adore her.
No way could I pick 5 favorite Stanwyck flicks. Even when the movie's not "up to par" her performances are ALWAYS flawless.
Odie, you ROCK!
And thanks for directing me here, SC…I've been AWOL lately.
Stanwyck in Lady Eve bears distinct resemblance to Catherine Keener (or vice versa, of course)
I never liked Henry Fonda, always thought he was a stiff. So seeing him repeatedly humiliated by Stanwyck made me love the Lady Eve all the more. He's not just turned into a human erection ("stiff", get it?), but he passes out from the sensation. Later she has him falling over sofas, into cakes, etc.
"Definitely the same dame!"