9

SATURDAY

Any woman who greets a co-worker with “Hello, stupid” is all right by me. This is one of the many charms of Lily, an enterprising miss who goes from barmaid to big bucks in Baby Face, an unmistakably pre-Code gem from 1933. As Lily, Barbara Stanwyck dishes out nothing but sass for the film’s snappy 71 minutes, to everyone from the boozers who like to play grab-ass at her father’s bar to the pathetic horndogs who dare fall in love with her when she pursues a “career” in New York: With a look that’s both angelic and self-satisfied, Lily needs only coo in the right man’s ear to move on to better jobs, better housing, better bling. Yes, Lily unabashedly sleeps her way to fortune. And yes, there are sometimes dire consequences—a murder-suicide not least among them. But does Lily learn a lesson? Hell, no! And that, my friends, is as popcorn-worthy as any alien attack. Ignore the clearly tacked-on happy ending when Baby Face shows at 3 p.m. in the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Auditorium, 4th Street and Constitution Ave. NW. Free. (202) 842-6799. (Tricia Olszewski)