Before Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson starred together in Billy Wilder’s “Double Indemnity,” they respectively carried two classics of the pre-code era – that brief period after the introduction of sound and before the imposition of the Hays Code. These dark views of life in the early part of the Depression will be on view at Film Forum for three screenings only, on January 24.

In the perennial Film Forum favorite “Babyface,” Stanwyck, in full on femme fatale form, plays Lilly, a prostitute working in a mill town. As she tells her father in the first five minutes: “Yeah, I’m a tramp and who’s to blame? My father!” Before the film was censored, the line continued: “Ever since I was 14! Nothing but men!”

Her father soon perishes in a fire and Lilly takes the advice of a Nietzschereading gentleman and heads to New York to sleep her way to the top. She goes to the personnel department at an office building: “Have you any experience?” “Plenty,” she responds with an unnecessary amount of suggestion, and she then leads the interviewer into an empty office.

Lilly goes on to bed a young John Wayne, before climbing the ladder toward every boss in the building. Wayne gets hurt feelings, the next boss loses his job, the next loses his fiancee. Even in pre-code films, though, such reckless romancing comes at a price, and in the end Lilly learns the error of her ways, sacrificing all her earnings for the love of a polo-playing playboy.

Although the film was made a year before the Production Code was put into effect, the New York State Board of Censors rejected this version of the film. The print, five minutes longer than the one ordinarily shown, incorporates footage discovered by the Library of Congress and this is the first opportunity to see the film in its intended version.

All of which sounds very academic, detracting from the whole point of “Babyface” in the first place – to see Stanwyck va-voom her way through men. As the original advertising for the film stated in 1933: “Parents: do not bring your children.”

In “Two Seconds,” Edward G. Robinson sits in an electric chair and reflects on the events that have led to his execution – the two seconds of reflection in his mind last the 60-odd minutes of the film. Directed by Mervyn Leroy, who gave Robinson his role as “Little Caesar,” “Two Seconds” is a ferociously cynical film about good men brought down by lousy women (“tomatoes,” in the satisfying parlance of the film).

It’s a simple production with maybe three sets. Early on, Robinson and his bud (who happens to be called Bud) approach two women who agree to a date, saying to themselves, “At least we get to eat tonight.” Robinson is established as a stand-up guy who runs away from fat women on blind dates and happens to frequent dancing clubs while disapproving of whores.

Being such a nice guy, he is tricked into marrying a prostitute while drunk, which makes his best friend so mad he falls off a skyscraper. Robinson has very convincing nervous breakdown before going completely off the rails and ending up electrocuted. But before he’s fried, he makes a wildly moving speech to the judge.

Nothing being made by Hollywood at the moment touches either of these films. Look at the trailers for, say, the new Will Smith comedy “Hitch,” then run to this one-day-only double feature in relief.

“Babyface” at 2, 5:15 & 8:20 p.m. and “Two Seconds” at 3:40, 6:50 & 10 p.m. on January 24 (209 W. Houston Street, between Sixth Avenue and Varick, 212-727-8110).