5 Schemers Deliciously Played by Barbara Stanwyck

I've always loved Christmas in Connecticut, despite its many flaws. When re-watching it last month, I realized that Stanwyck may be the main problem (well, Stanwyck and the script). She was cast as a screwy dame who constantly relies on men to get her out of jams. That's all fine and good if you're Carole Lombard. But Stanwyck was always best when she was the one calling the shots:

Florence "Faith" Fallon in The Miracle Woman (1931, Frank Capra) was loosely based on the very successful evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who lost a great deal of credibility when she allegedly faked her own kidnapping in 1926. That's not in The Miracle Woman, though. Stanwyck played a fraudulent evangelist who travels the country with a con man, faking miracles and reaping profits. Hopefully, the presence of Stanwyck and Capra will lead to the film's DVD release, especially since I taped my copy off of Turner Classic Movies during a thunderstorm, resulting in a very poor print.

Lily Powers in Baby Face (1933, Alfred E. Green) starts out being whored out by her father in his speakeasy. She escapes him, flees to New York and - thanks to the teachings of Nietzsche - sleeps her way to the top of a corporation. As the tagline read: "She climbed the ladder of success - wrong by wrong!" Only the censored version of Baby Face was available for decades until an original, uncut print was found in 2004. You can now watch both versions on the Forbidden Hollywood Collection from TCM available on Warner Home Video.

Jean Harrington in The Lady Eve (1941, Preston Sturges) gets her heart broken by beer baron Charles "Hopsy" Pike (Henry Fonda). What's a girl to do? Pretend to be an English Lady, so Pike will fall in love with her again, so she can dump him, so he'll run back to her, of course.

On the day she gets fired from her job as a newspaper columnist, Ann Mitchell in Meet John Doe (1941, Capra) submits a fake suicide note - signed "John Doe" - for her final column. The article gets so much attention that she convinces her editors to re-hire and to hire a bum (Gary Cooper) to act the part of John Doe to keep the gimmick going. What could possibly go wrong?

Stanwyck's greatest role was as one of the most fatales femmes in the entire noir cycle: The amoral Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity (1944, Billy Wilder) seduces insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and contrives a scheme to defraud his company by offing her husband (Tom Powers). Only then does the Neff find out what happened to the first Mrs. Dietrichson.