Swedish Film Institute – Stockholm, Sweden

Lily is a young woman who is suffocating in a small-town den. Her friend Cregg, an elderly shoemaker, advises her to read Nietzsche and be inspired by the philosopher’s thoughts on using one’s full potential and being worthy of life. She should also stop letting men take advantage of her, and instead use them for their own purposes. Lily takes her friend’s advice literally and heads to New York.

The city and its life are symbolized in A Dangerous Woman by the enormous skyscrapers of New York, and especially the Art Deco building where Lily seeks employment. Her questionable methods for getting to the top of the company are exposed each time she is transferred to a new department on a higher floor of the building. A young Barbara Stanwyck is brilliant as the bold Lily in a pre-code film that would have been difficult to make just a year later when the moral Hay Code had been put into effect.

As a preview film, Dave Fleischer’s Betty Moves is shown , in which the well-known cartoon character Betty Boop flees to the countryside to try to escape the noise of the big city.

Stop That Noise. 1935, USA, 7 min, English, without subtitles, digital copy, allowed from 15 years. Screening material from Fabulous Fleischer Cartoons Restored.

Baby Face. 1933, USA, 1 hr 11 min, English, without subtitles, digital copy, age 15 and up. Screening material from Park Circus.