Review of Baby Face

On the Forbidden Hollywood DVD, both versions of the film are delightfully on the same disc, making it easy to compare them. I watched the uncensored, uncut pre-release version first, then the theatrical release to see what they had cut. Holy cow! A lot! To my surprise they not only cut, they revised. The revisions really change the tone and character motivations. If you've only ever seen the theatrical release then you must see the uncensored version, if only to find out three things 1. That the kindly old man who gives her earnest advice...is not the guy you thought he was. Almost all of his dialogue was cut or redubbed to make him a "moral voice of reason" in the theatrical release. The scene where he sends her a chastising letter was a revision. Get a load of what he actually tells her, and what he actually sends her! Let me put it this way, he's a much bigger influence on her behavior than the theatrical release led one to believe. 2. The boxcar scene. Which was cut in it's entirety from the theatrical release. It raised my 2010 eyebrows! Finally, 3. The ending when she's listening to her phonograph in the stateroom. Here I'll be specific because this was a change that irritated me. In the theatrical release, she's listening to the record and we see that she's thinking about her husband, and then she dashes off to find him. In the pre-release version she's listening to the record and she's thinking about ALL of the men who she's been involved with over the course of the movie that got her to where she is, finally ending with her husband and a voice-over of him telling her that he knows she's been with a lot of men, but he doesn't care, he loves her and is determined to make her love him. Then she dashes off to find him. Honestly that makes a big difference! You know she goes back to him because he's the one guy who accepts her for who she is. In the theatrical version she's just suddenly developed random affection for him, no reason. So if you can, watch the uncensored, uncut version. It's absolutely worth your time!