Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) was one of Hollywood’s most glamorous actors. Working steadily from the 1930s until the 1950s, she was a star in a constellation of starlets, having been nominated for four Academy Awards between 1937 and 1948. She invariably portrayed tough, feisty, resourceful women who would not be held back by social or economic constraints.
Stanwyck appeared in a host of memorable films, from Double Indemnity and Union Pacific to The Lady Eve and Sorry, Wrong Number.
This legendary figure will be honored by the Toronto International Film Festival at a retrospective of her movies. Ball of Fire: The Films of Barbara Stanwyck runs from Feb. 7 to April 4 at the Tiff Bell Lightbox.
Her breakout performance occurred in Baby Face (Tuesday, March 10 at 6:45 p.m.) a 1933 pre-Code drama directed by Alfred Green. Stanwyck plays Lily Powers, a working-class gal who serves drinks and fends off men’s advances in her father’s illegal speakeasy in a sooty American industrial town.
Stanwyck establishes Lily’s hard exterior in the first few minutes.
“So can we take a walk?” a mill worker says. “I can hardly wait,” she replies sarcastically.
In another testy exchange, a man asks, “How are you, Lily?” She says, “I was great until now.”
Lily’s father is as crude as his clientele. When he implies that she should sleep with a local politician who’s threatening to close down his business, she steadfastly refuses.
Lily is saved from drudgery by a kind cobbler with a German accent. “If you stay in this town, you’re lost,” he warns, proceeding to give her a piece of advice that changes her life. “You must use men, you must have power over them,” he says. Paraphrasing the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, he advises Lily to “crush out all sentiment” and keep an eye on the main chance.
Taking heed of his sage words, Lily and her African-American friend, Chico (Theresa Harrison), sneak into a boxcar of a train bound for New York City. And there, in the dark of the night, she uses her feminine charms for the first time to advance her interests.
By means of the same coy method, Lily lands a job in a Manhattan bank and sleeps her way to the top. John Wayne, in one of his earliest roles, becomes her first conquest. Lily subsequently ruthlessly rolls over two bosses before she sinks her claws into Carter (Henry Kolker), the bank’s 60-something president.
Carter sets her up in a fancy apartment, which is tended to by Lily’s maid, Chico. Carter wants to “get rid” of the “colored girl,” but Lily balks. In an age of segregation, Lily stands out as an equal opportunity employer.
After Carter’s violent demise, Lily finds herself momentarily adrift, but quickly reovers after seducing Trenholm (George Brent), Carter’s playboy successor. Always looking out for herself, Lily extorts a tidy sum of money from the bank in return for not selling her salacious diary to a newspaper. The bank also gives her a job in its Paris branch, and there she meets Trenholm yet again. Falling head over heels for her, Trenholm courts Lily ardently. In turn, she manipulates him. To Lily, men are like putty, pliable and easily influenced.
The question hovering over the film is whether Lily, the arch cynic, can find true love without exposing herself to financial ruin.
Stanwyck is a marvel as she maneuvers around pitfalls and outwits a succession of foolish men who will do practically anything to satisfy their carnal pleasure.
Baby Face, a rollicking film that elicits equal measures of shock and awe, is great fun and a classic of its kind.
In Stella Dallas (Sunday, February 8 at 3:45 p.m.), directed by King Vidor and released in 1937, Stanwyck depicts Stella Martin, a smalltown seamstress whose raison d’etre is upward mobility.
Stella ingratiates herself with Stephen Dallas (John Boles), the lonely owner of the factory where her father and brother work as lowly mill hands. She marries Dallas, a decent guy, and they have a daughter, Laurel (Anne Shirley).
Basically a snob, Stella craves acceptance from the “right crowd” in Dallas’ social set. She doesn’t get it because of her gauche behavior. Stella also annoys Dallas by consorting with a gambler, Ed Munn (Alan Hale).
Stella and Dallas begin leading separate lives when he moves to New York City and she decides not to join him there. In New York, Dallas starts an affair with Helen (Barbara O’Neil), whose refined manners are far more suitable to his tastes than Stella’s. Meanwhile, Stella develops a close relationship with Laurel, who’s gradually drawn into her father’s circle.
For a brief moment, Laurel shows signs of being ashamed of her mother, but this feeling passes. When Laurel agrees to live with Dallas and Helen, Stella acknowledges that there are strong advantages in this arrangement.
In this indelible movie about class in America, Stanwyck is her usual bright and brassy self.
Stanwyck plays a heiress with a secret in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Sunday, March 22 at 3:30 p.m.), directed by Lewis Milestone. Shot in atmospheric film noir style, with a rousing musical score by Miklos Rozsa, this 1946 movie starts with a murder and ends with a double homicide.
Martha (Stanwyck), having inherited a factory from her mean and imperious aunt, weds Walter O’Neil (Kirk Douglas, in his film debut), a mild-mannered lawyer. Martha’s a strong, ambitious woman, while Walter is weak and irresolute. She wants him to run for the position of attorney-general in an upcoming local election, but he’s less than keen to pursue that prize.
Suddenly, an old flame, Sam Masterson (Van Heflin), appears in Martha’s life. Masterson, a gambler, reminds her of the good times they used to have. But there’s a fly in the ointment: Masterson’s smoulderingly sexy girlfriend (Lisabeth Scott).
O’Neil, cognizant of Martha’s wandering eye, tries to drive Masterson out of town. It’s a wasted effort, Masterson having come to the conclusion that Martha is duplicitous. “You don’t know the difference between right and wrong,” he says in a reappraisal of his attitude toward Martha.
Stanwyck, as usual, shines as a woman who will stop at nothing to achieve her objective.
The complete schedule:
Night Nurse
dir. William A. Wellman | USA 1931 | 72 min. | PG 35mm
Barbara Stanwyck plays a wisecracking private nurse who sets out to save two endangered children from a villainous chauffeur (Clark Gable!), in this racy, hard-boiled pre-Code mystery from the great William Wellman.
Saturday, February 7 at 3:30 p.m.
Stella Dallas
dir. King Vidor | USA 1937 | 108 min. | G 35mm
As the fiercely determined working-class gal who marries up but is rejected for her gauche behaviour, Barbara Stanwyck found a part tailored to her mastery of combining the vulgar and the vulnerable.
Sunday, February 8 at 3:45 p.m.
Ball of Fire
Archival Print!
dir. Howard Hawks | USA 1941 | 112 min. | G 35mm
Stanwyck was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as a slang-spouting, booty-shaking stripper who entrances a bookish bachelor academic (Gary Cooper) when she holes up at his house while on the lam from the law.
Thursday, February 12 at 9 p.m.
Double Indemnity
Restored Digital Presentation!
dir. Billy Wilder | USA 1944 | 107 min. | PG Digital
A seductive and scary Stanwyck entered film noir history as homicidal housewife Phyllis Dietrichson, in Billy Wilder’s classic adaptation of the notorious James M. Cain novella.
Saturday, February 21 at 3:30 p.m.
Remember the Night
dir. Mitchell Leisen | USA 1940 | 86 min. | PG 35mm
A stylish Manhattan thief (Barbara Stanwyck) reveals her true-blue Hoosier heart when she unexpectedly ends up home for the holidays with the assistant DA who prosecuted her (Fred MacMurray).
Sunday, February 22 at 3:15 p.m.
The Lady Eve
dir. Preston Sturges | USA 1941 | 94 min. | PG Digital
Preston Sturges’ supernal summit of screwball comedy gave Stanwyck one of her most deluxe roles as a con artist who sets out to bilk a clueless millionaire bachelor (Henry Fonda).
Saturday, February 28 at 8 p.m.
Meet John Doe
Archival Print!
dir. Frank Capra | USA 1941 | 122 min. | G 35mm
A fast-talking reporter (Barbara Stanwyck) recruits a vagrant (Gary Cooper) to play the part of a fictional Everyman whose protests against social injustice have electrified the country, in Frank Capra’s ambitious anti-fascist fable.
Tuesday, March 3 at 6:15 p.m.
The Furies
Archival Print!
dir. Anthony Mann | USA 1950 | 109 min. | PG 16mm
Stanwyck sears the screen as the firebrand daughter of a Wild West cattle baron, in Anthony Mann’s wild noir-western-psychodrama.
Friday, March 6 at 8:45 p.m.
The File on Thelma Jordon
dir. Robert Siodmak | USA 1950 | 100 min. | 14A 35mm
A steely femme fatale (Barbara Stanwyck) entices an unhappily married assistant DA into her murderous schemes, in this noir classic by Robert Siodmak.
Saturday, March 7 at 1:30 p.m.
Sorry, Wrong Number
dir. Anatole Litvak | USA 1948 | 89 min. | PG Digital
A domineering, bedridden Manhattan heiress (Barbara Stanwyck) overhears a plot to murder an unnamed woman, in this nerve-shredding suspense classic that earned Stanwyck another Best Actress Oscar nomination.
Saturday, March 7 at 8 p.m.
Forty Guns
dir. Samuel Fuller | USA 1957 | 80 min. | PG Digital
Barbara Stanwyck stars as a leather-clad, whip-wielding cattle baroness in Sam Fuller’s deliriously sexualized western.
Sunday, March 8 at 1:30 p.m.
Baby Face
Archival Print!
dir. Alfred E. Green | USA 1933 | 71 min. | 14A 35mm
The recently rediscovered uncensored version of this pre-Code barn-burner has been celebrated as “one of the most stunningly sordid films ever made.”
Tuesday, March 10 at 6:45 p.m.
Clash by Night
dir. Fritz Lang | USA 1952 | 105 min. | PG 35mm
Stanwyck stars opposite Robert Ryan and Marilyn Monroe (in her first major role) in Fritz Lang’s noir-ish tale of adultery and vengeance.
Sunday, March 15 at 6 p.m.
All I Desire
dir. Douglas Sirk | USA 1953 | 79 min. | PG 35mm
Stanwyck stars in this first of director Douglas Sirk’s magnificent woman-centred melodramas, as an itinerant actress who returns to her hometown — and the husband, lover, and children she left behind — ten years after running off to seek stardom on the stage.
Friday, March 20 at 6:30 p.m.
There’s Always Tomorrow
dir. Douglas Sirk | USA 1955 | 84 min. | PG 35mm
An underappreciated family man (Fred MacMurray) gets one last chance at happiness with an old flame (Barbara Stanwyck), in this moving, lesser-known masterpiece by Douglas Sirk.
Saturday, March 21 at 6:30 p.m.
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
Archival Print!
dir. Lewis Milestone | USA 1946 | 116 min. | 14A 35mm
A hard-bitten small-town businesswoman (Barbara Stanwyck) is bound by a dark secret to the weak-willed husband she hates (Kirk Douglas, in his screen debut), in this twisted little noir by director Lewis Milestone.
Sunday, March 22 at 3:30 p.m.
Walk on the Wild Side
dir. Edward Dmytryk | USA 1962 | 114 min. | R 35mm
Stanwyck memorably plays the crypto-lesbian madam of a New Orleans brothel in this lurid melodrama adapted from the Nelson Algren best-seller.
Saturday, March 28 at 1 p.m.
The Miracle Woman
dir. Frank Capra | USA 1931 | 90 min. | PG Digital
A phony faith healer (Barbara Stanwyck) becomes a star on the evangelical circuit, in Frank Capra’s amazing critique of God-besotted, Depression-era America.
Sunday, March 29 at 1 p.m.
The Bitter Tea of General Yen
dir. Frank Capra | USA 1933 | 89 min. | PG Digital
A young American woman (Barbara Stanwyck) finds herself in the clutches of a cultured Chinese warlord, in Frank Capra’s strange and entrancing classic of Orientalist exoticism.
Saturday, April 4 at 3:45 p.m.