Baby Face (1933)

Alphonse Ethier: Adolf Cragg

Photos 

Quotes 

• Cragg : You're a coward. I mean it! You let life defeat you. You don't fight back.

  Lily Powers : What chance has a woman got?

  Cragg : More chance than man. A woman, young, beautiful, like you, can get anything she wants in the world. Because you have Power over men! But you must use men! Not let them use you. You must be a master! Not a slave. Look, here, Nietzsche says, "All life, no matter how we idealize it, is nothing more nor less than exploitation." That's what I'm telling you! Exploit yourself! Go to some big city where you will find opportunities. Use men! Be strong! Defiant! Use men! To get the t'ings you want.

  Lily Powers : [contemplative pause]  Yeah.

  [puffs a cigarette] 

• Cragg : Did you read dat book I gave you?

  Lily Powers : Oh, I tried to, but I didn't understand it very good.

  Cragg : It's by Nietzsche! The greatest philosopher of all time!

  Lily Powers : Well, I never did get much good out of books.

  Cragg : You are a fool. You could learn a lot from dat book. But, if you are content to stay here like a dumb animal, in this miserable life, then I wash my hands from you.

• Cragg : Use men to get the things you want!

• Cragg : How long are you going to stand it? Why don't you get out, before its too late?

  Lily Powers : Where would I go?

  Cragg : Out into the world. You could make something of yourself. You have Power!

  Lily Powers : [Disbelievingly]  Yeah, I'm a ball of fire, I am.

  Cragg : You don't realize your potentialities.

  Lily Powers : Come again?

• Cragg : So, now what?

  Lily Powers : [Sarcastically]  Well, the future looks very bright. Just as I was leaving the cemetery, Ed Sipple made me a proposition. And last night the manager at the... burlesque house offered me a job in the chorus to do a strip act.

  Cragg : A strip act?

  Lily Powers : Yeah, show my shape.

  Cragg : Well, that's a business in its self.

  Lily Powers : Oh, I guess I ain't much of a business woman.

• Cragg : What's going to become of you? Its up to you to decide. If you stay in this town, you are lost.

  Lily Powers : Where would I go? Paris? I got four bucks.