Pretty Baby (1978) User Reviews

It's taken me 20 years to write this!

[lambiepie-2 · 5/10 · 13 November 2003]

I saw this movie for the first time on the Los Angeles based "Z" Channel in the early 80's. (Gosh, I miss that channel!!!)

(Minor Spoilers)

In watching it, my first reaction was saddness...because this told of a story of children who were raised in a brothel. This one particular beautiful daughter of one of the female prostitutes was destined to live a life just as her mother, a prostitute, for the daughter knew of no other life. Her mother did eventually leave the brothel in one of her selfish modes, but left her very young daughter there who experienced life very quickly -- for she saw nothing wrong with that life.

20 years later, I look at this movie again on the HBO network and after living some years I gotta tell you, this movie now upsets me to watch. I found it difficult to look at a pre-pubescent Brooke Shields run around naked with grown men, including Keith Carradine, even though this was part of the script and part of the film -- it wasn't meant to be gratitutious or stimulating. But now -- I just wanted to smack her mother for allowing her almost teen daughter to do this. I wanted to smack myself for ever watching it. And ya know what? That IS the point of film.

This is what makes this film disturbing and captivating at the same time. The IDEA this occured in our Century makes one furious and that story is being told so we can look back and make sure it never occurs again. But...the realization of SEEING it on film dramatically portrayed by Brooke Sheilds as the daughter, Susan Sarandon as the self-centered, prostitute mother and Keith Carradine as the grown Photographer is what gets to you.

I remember reading where many movie seekers saw this as Louis Malle's "kiddie porn" and wanted the film banned. I guess its all in your personal comfort level. But be warned, this is an adult film with very adult subject matter... NOT a subject or film for many.

eye opener

[Maretha · 7/10 · 24 May 2005]

I really liked this film for what it is. I also think that it is undoubtedly the most eye-opening film I ever saw in terms of the reality of the daily life of some people. Violet grew up in this house full of prostitutes, without a childhood, never knowing how to behave as a child. She grew up knowing how to behave in order to promote business in their 'house'. The deflowering ritual that Violet had to undergo would have scared me senseless, and it is pitifully sad to think that she looked forward to it, only because then the other women in the house would really take her seriously. The fact of the matter is, this is a true story and people should watch it, even if only to realise how grateful we should be for not living in times like that, for growing up in times where we are actually given a choice.

intentionally disturbing

[jep831 · 6/10 · 1 February 2005]

I think it was a fine piece of film making about a horrific situation. I agree with a previous poster that its understated tone was one of its strengths. The film maker presents a detailed, rounded view of the lifestyle and its effects on a girl who is much too young and much too pretty to have been allowed to ply her trade.

One of the ways I judge the strength of a film is the extent to which I wonder "what happens next?" after the closing credits. I would say the film succeeded. From the expression on Violet's face in the closing shot, I think she had been so warped by everything she had seen and done that, no matter what, she would never be able to become a normal woman living a normal life. My fear is that whether she went back to prostitution or lived a presumptively respectable life, she would always be ignorant, impulsive, self-centered and someone who used her appearance to manipulate others. After all, she, like everyone else in the world, can only know what she has been taught.

Can you step outside of yourself for two hours?

[futures-1 · 5 June 2006]

"Pretty Baby" (1978): Usually, when a controversial film comes out, the hubbub dies off in a few weeks. Later, people wonder why anyone got upset at all. In this case, I think the opposite is the case. There WAS some buzz about "Pretty Baby" when it premiered in 1978, but NOW? People would be killing the director, photographer, and screen writers in the names of Decency & Righteousness. It's a crazy world. Photographed by Sven Nykvist (Ingmar Bergman's photographer), Louis Malle directed this Polly Platt screenplay about the real life New Orleans documentary photographer E.J. Bellocq. He spent much of his career photographing those no one else would – the prostitutes of N.O. - and eventually became involved with a young girl (Brooke Shields) raised by her prostitute single mother (Susan Sarandon), to be a prostitute herself. There's an interesting push/pull to this film. It is SO beautifully photographed, and the prostitutes shown SO human, there is much warmth in the scenes, yet the facts remain difficult to accept – life was what it was, and they did what they had to do to survive in the turn-of-the-century South. This is NOT a story of tragedy (except in personal terms that have nothing to do with the profession). Most everyone went about their days in matter-of-fact acceptance of their "station" in life, and did not get ulcers. They had a roof, decent money, good food, servants, and a place to raise their "accident" children. "Pretty Baby" asks you to step outside your contemporary world and standards, and try, just for two hours, to see another point of view. It's an interesting challenge…perhaps more now than even a mere 30 years ago.

Ultimately, a damp squib... though a controversial one.

[Asa_Nisi_Masa2 · 6/10 · 20 April 2006]

Pretty Baby started off very well and I immediately thought: This is gonna be a gem! But it seemingly lost steam in the second half, petering out quite disappointingly towards the end. It was as if Louis Malle had been in a bit of a rush to conclude the story. Brooke Shields really was an angelically beautiful child - she seemingly peeked so early! The atmosphere in the brothel scenes was the best thing about the movie, probably helped by the fact that the photographer Bellocq's real photographs were used to get a sense of the time and place and evoke it with authenticity. Viewers particularly touchy to the issue of underage sex beware, as the movie doesn't spare modern sensibilities with the fact that the concept of a girl being too young for sex (if she was deemed sexually attractive) wasn't even an issue for most men in the early 20th century! That said, there are thankfully no explicit scenes - you just know what is happening and painfully squirm in your chair while it does! One qualm I did have with the movie was some of the slightly sloppy costuming: some of the clothes worn here seemed a little earlier than 1917, more like a decade earlier. Furthermore, the way everyone reacted to the pictures Bellocq, the young photographer took of the prostitutes seemed very anachronistic, and made me lose respect for the movie (Bellocq is a figure that actually existed, though the specific story built around him in the movie is fictional). Photography was by 1917 no longer considered a sort of "magic", viewed with incredulous wonder (as the characters in the movie react to it). This would have been more historically exact for a story set in, say, 1850 or thereabouts! I found that aspect to be a ridiculous - its makers really should have known better.

Image is Everything

[caspian1978 · 7/10 · 20 September 2002]

If you look close, you will notice that the direction is pulling you into the story. Louis Malle holds onto the image in front of us until we have taken it all in. When we think there will be a cut soon in the film, we are robbed of this pity. Instead, we are given reality. At first, I thought the movie as going to end at the edge of the river bank during the picnic. It would have been a delightful shock for the movie to end in such a pure and innocent way. However, we are not given this. In fact, Louis Malle once again cheats(tricks)us into this. The next shot in the film shows the newly married couple having breakfast. If you watch closely, again, you will notice the scene comes ever so quick without a dissolve in neither the picture nor the music. A film that will stand the test of time. Reasons.....yes, sadly, the nudity will keep this video rented on a monthly bases. Then again, the movie does capture the bleak poetry of the era and tells a story like no other. One of Brooke's first and best roles.

artistic justification

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 7 November 2016]

It's 1917 Storyville, New Orleans. Illiterate willful twelve year old Violet (Brooke Shields)'s mother Hattie (Susan Sarandon) gives birth to a boy. They work in a high class brothel run by drug addict Nell. Ernest J. Bellocq (Keith Carradine) pays to take up residence photographing mostly Hattie. Nell puts Violet's virginity up for auction to her customers. Violet is eager to join the business but the actual act is painful. Violet starts to work as a prostitute. Hattie marries a customer and moves to St. Louis without Violet. After getting a corporal punishment, Violet runs away and moves in with Bellocq starting a sexual relationship.

Violet's gleeful willing participation in her own degradation is compelling and infuriating. The most engaging scene is the auction. It is creepy with these entranced old men. That scene should be the climax. The movie cannot get any more creepy although it does try. Bellocq is all too quick to sleep with Violet. The movie meanders in the second half. It's all very sad. Brooke Shields is exceedingly young and the movie fits the definition of child porn. There is definitely some artistic merits but I don't know if it justifies pushing open the envelop.

A monstrous subject handled with care and beauty by Louis Malle

[tomgillespie2002 · 7/10 · 6 July 2011]

Set during the final weeks of legal prostitution in Storyville, New Orleans, the whorehouse ran by the ageing Madame Nell (Frances Faye) is quietly coming to an end. This is unknown to the employees, who are going about their work and earning their money. Ernest Bellocq (Keith Carradine), a real-life photographer who took the famous Storyville prostitute portraits, arrives and takes an special interest in the beautiful Hattie (Susan Sarandon), and her 12-year old daughter Violet (Brooke Shields). Violet is a confident, bratty and adventurous girl who is groomed to be the star attraction at the brothel by Hattie and Madame Nell. As the men queue up for Violet, Bellocq also becomes enamoured with her, and the two start a strange love affair.

For such a monstrously ugly subject, Pretty Baby is a strikingly beautiful film. The idea of child prostitution is repulsive but was a very real thing back in the 1917-era (and obviously still exists today under a much more secretive veil). It takes a very brave director to even consider tackling such a subject, and then to do it with such elegance, truth and respect. The both cosy and dank whorehouse pulses with life and realism, to the point where it feels like the film was actually filmed in the time. Minor details such as the peeling paint on the window ledges and the layers of dust on the bookshelves adds an authenticity rarely seen.

The film was extremely controversial in its day (and would still be if it was released today) for its full-frontal nudity of a 12-year old Brooke Shields. It is undoubtedly uncomfortable to watch at times, but as hard as it is to say, it is necessary to truly see who she is, and what the men want her for, which makes the whole thing even more horrific and wrong. The scene where she is carried into a room and flaunted as a virgin to rich, cigar-smoking older men who start a bidding war to take her virginity, left me cold. It is a truly powerful scene, and when we later see her naked in her youth, all fragile and undeveloped, it almost made me sick.

Shields, who is clearly not the most talented actress in the world, is genuinely brilliant here. Full of natural beauty and swaggering maturity, her character is a complex mixture of the naive, the immature, and the wise-beyond-her-years. She seems more than ready, and eager to start work, and has the natural ability to wrap a man around her little finger. Years growing up in a brothel has seemingly left her unable to feel. And when she begins her relationship with Bellocq, it is unclear if she truly loves him, or she is simply acting to get the life she desires. If you can stomach the taboo subject matter, this is a fascinating film, rich with great acting, complex characters and a smart script, handled with an individuality and grace by the great Louis Malle.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

This Movie Is Based On Truth!

[mk4 · 8/10 · 25 December 2004]

I'd like to point out that this movie is literally based on first hand recollections of a prostitute interviewed in Al Rose's definitive book on the subject: "Storyville", published many years ago. Anyone familiar with with the era knows that the photographer, E. J. Bellocq, was a real person who captured on glass plates forever the images of the young prostitutes of Storyville. These photographs are hauntingly beautiful in their own right, and the young Brooke Shields--as well as the beautiful Susan Sarandon--were a masterstroke of Malle to play the parts of mother and daughter prostitutes. The recollections in the book draw upon the actual fact that the mother who related the story actually took part in the deflowering of her daughter in the "House" as described, and that they went on to be a "team", a very common and desirable commodity in that day. Not mentioned-- but inferred to those who "read between the lines"-- was that the pony that young Violet casually rides in the backyard of the mansion in the beginning of the movie was actually an animal used to entertain the paying customers in "the circus" that certain women performed in ...for the"right price." Many of the photo sessions depicted in the film are loving recreations of surviving Bellocq prints. The women portraying the "girls" in the movie could have been working girls in "The District" had they lived back then. Some IMDb readers profess to be shocked by conditions in Storyville back then, but as the book recounts, it was all true, and many of the women actually did enjoy their livelyhood. It was the "bluenoses" to the rescue who saved them and the U. S. Navy from themselves, just as they would save the nation from "drink" a few years later. Although ragtime and jazz are touched on in the movie, Storyville was directly responsible for the likes of young Louis Armstrong--who ran coal from House to House--picking up the street melodies he heard and playing them on a cornet furnished to him--providentially--by the local orphanage, and for Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton, pianist...and pimp...who played in only the best houses and claimed he invented the term "jazz" as applied to music after witnessing first hand all that "jassing-around" he saw in the bordellos of Storyville! Remarkeably, overlooked altogether is any mention of the composer of the tune "Pretty Baby," Professor Tony Jackson, a key figure of the Storyville saga, who should have been the character portrayed in the film but wasn't, and who was not even mentioned in the credits.

As for Bellocq himself not much is known except that he was slightly deformed and not interested in the ladies at all sexually-- the marriage to Violet merely a modern plot device--but he professed his deep fascination and reverence for them, thankfully, in other ways: his portraits. Without them, a poignant record of their lives,and that of The District, would be lost forever. All in all, the film is a wonderful paean to Bellocq, and the women he loved in his own way. I would urge all critics of this movie to seek out a copy of "Storyville, New Orleans" by Al Rose, or MOMA's "E. J. Bellocq: Storyville Portraits." They will really open yours eyes to what Louis Malle has recreated.

Brilliantly made, but sends the wrong message

[tunnels-15236 · 7/10 · 4 June 2020]

After years of hearing about this movie, I finally saw it yesterday. To say that i didn't feel uncomfortable and disturbed by certain scenes in this movie would be an outright lie. The tale of a 12 year old girl named Violet (played by a stunning preteen Brooke Shields) growing up in a New Orleans brothel in the 1920's with little to no parental supervision, and surrounded by adult female prostitutes as her "role models", is a truly interesting, well done movie that sure leaves a lasting impression on the viewer.

Now, on one hand, the movie is honest in that it shows how children living in America were used and abused in the past (and still happens today). That is the honest part of the movie. What is so terrible about this movie is that the character of Violet doesn't much mind that she is being constantly pimped out by the Madame of the brothel, Nell. In one shocking scene, we see Violet being asked to sit in the lap of an adult man in front of her mother, who is also in the room. He then proceeds to practically feel her up all the while Madame Nell watches. For the first time in the movie we see Madame Nell view Violet as a commidity despite her extremely young age. The following scene shows Nell putting Violet into super skimpy dress, then painting her lips bright red, and finally giving her heels. The Madame then puts Violet in a smoke filled roomed with literally dozens of men leering ar her like a piece of meat. What girl of 12 is not going to not be scared to death of being in a room filled with a bunch of dirty old men, while dressed in just high heels and a transparent nightgown, with clearly no underwear on? Yet the movie shows Violet as being relaxed and cheerful about being auctioned off to a group of amoral pedophiles, and this is what is so ojectionable about the film. This is what makes the film damaging to the culture in a way no movie has ever done before. In other words, it legitimizes the sexual exploitation of a child. Not explicitly but covertly. In a romantic gloss of pretty visuals. Yes, the movie is well done and gorgeous to look at. But it hides something very disturbing (not to mention just plain false) at the heart of it: sexually violate a pre teen girl and maybe, just maybe, it might not be such a serious crime afterall.

Even scarier is the potential for this movie to influence a young girls' outlook on sex in a way that opens up for her to be sexually exploited. Think about it, a pre teen girl is watching this movie about a beautiful and glamorous 12 year old girl who is a prostitute, and many if not most of the male clients at said brothel find her extremely desirable. There is a suggestion made to a pre teen girl that if they really wanted to make some money, there are men who would pay her lots of money if they got together in a private place, and then take off her clothes. After watching this movie and seeing how almost all the adult males featured here can't stop being utterly fascinated by Violet, would the experience THEN be viewed by the young girl being exploited in REAL life as something horrible, or a good way to make a lot of money in a short period of time? It's something to seriously think about.

Why this really is actually just child porn

[dudleynomore · 1/10 · 20 August 2010]

The nudity doesn't ultimately add anything to the story (hence porn) and the nudity in question is of a child (hence child porn). If the movie was exactly the same but the lead actress was older, no one would make the argument that the nudity added anything, because the whole point of it is the added impact it makes thanks to Brooke Shields being twelve. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Giving the film-makers the benefit of the doubt, it seems to assume we're going to have a particular reaction to child nudity, something like "oh no, how awful it was for children in that situation back then!" But all the truly unpleasant abuse has to occur off-screen for obvious reasons, so any dramatic impact is toothless. None of the nudity is placed within a context that forces the audience to confront how awful it is, on the contrary it's all supremely tasteful, partly thanks to the whitewashed characterization of the most artificially appealing pedophile in cinema history, Bellocq. And by using real child nudity in an attempt to demonstrate how exploitative of children people were back then, the film ignores its own message.

It doesn't help that there effectively is no story. There's almost no focus on what Violet is actually feeling at all, instead there's an alternation between scenes where she acts like a child and scenes where she earns her keep as a prostitute. I got the impression I was supposed to sympathize with the character solely because she was a child in a sh!tty situation, not because the writers gave her interesting traits, or at the very least, conveyed an impression of how she saw the world.

We could argue how to define porn, of course, but I don't think that's difficult: it's where the nudity is the point. If this movie hadn't had Brooke Shields naked no one would even remember it, as there's little dramatic content and no plot. The main character has, from beginning to end, no ultimate control over her fate - and regardless of how realistic that is it still makes for a lousy story. If they had made the narrative more character-based, so it hinged on something that Violet could have some influence over, perhaps a story about a child prostitute in this era could have worked... but not like this.

1/10, one of the most pathetically misguided art-house exploitation flicks ever.

An incredibly frank but humane movie of the type that doesn't seem to be made anymore.

[Ham_and_Egger · 8/10 · 9 June 2005]

A beautifully filmed movie which tells a difficult story with a subtlety and power that leaves you thinking about it during odd moments for days. It's that much more disconcerting because all the while you're keenly aware that this isn't based on "a true story" but on millions of true stories throughout history, including today, and in every part of the globe.

Due to my age I'd never seen 'Pretty Baby' in the theater or, for some reason, read much about it. I was aware of the basic plot but didn't know I'd be seeing quite so much of a naked 12 year-old Brooke Shields. A couple of moments were honestly difficult for me to watch, but I've come to the conclusion that the nudity is absolutely essential to the telling of the story. You *have* to be forced to see exactly what those men were paying for.

The brilliance of director Loius Malle's film is that he constantly subverts the audience's desire to be aghast at what we see. The camera finds happy little moments throughout the movie, your mind is left to fill in the ugly realities. This trend continues to the end, which is like a cruel mirror image of the typical happily ever after Hollywood ending.

child prostitute in 1917 New Orleans.

[dgar1948 · 6/10 · 23 December 2005]

This is the first time I watched this movie and although it was entertaining I don't think it depicted the real world of prostitution, especially the part of Brooke Shields. A lovely young girl of 12 introduced into that sordid world I believe would be more messed up in the head than depicted in this movie. But then again she's a 12 year old and kids are kids even though in one part of the movie she states that she's not a child. A typical preteen comment even in 1917. The impression I got watching the movie was that Violet was living proof that being deflowered does not a woman make anymore than a boy becomes a man the first time he's had sex. Violet certainly didn't act like a woman even when she got "married." The ending proves that when she decides to go with mommy. A kid is a Kid is a kid. Very, very, very few girls that age would be able to handle marriage. This movie kind of reminded me of "Pretty Woman." A sanitized version of prostitution.

One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time

[alan-c-edwards · 1/10 · 11 June 2006]

I think "Pretty Baby" is the kind of flick that some movie connoisseurs will feel compelled to say they like. However, all the things I've seen it lauded for are in fact sub par - story, script, performances and cinematography. The one thing it has going for it is historical interest - it is a great snapshot of New Orleans in this era, touching on the US navy and its role in supporting, then ultimately wrecking, "red light" culture, as well as music, race relations, poverty and prostitution. In this sense it has a Upton Sinclair-like quality, and might be watched only for the purpose of learning about New Orleans.

But it falls far short of telling any kind of cinematic story. It feels from beginning to end like a cheap documentary, with no real concept of art or story telling, but only a "look at how bad this life was" approach. The movie is constantly interrupted by superfluous scenes that lead nowhere and add nothing, and is laced with moments that the director obviously thought were pregnant with meaning, but are actually just awkwardly long. I was begging for the credits to roll an hour before they did. The movie is sloppy and uninspired from start to finish, which is a shame because turn of the century New Orleans is a story that deserves to be told well.

Oh, my . . .

[DeeDee-10 · 19 August 1999]

Twenty one years later, I finally rented the video of Pretty Baby out of curiosity. What a surprise. Brooke Shields was amazing: coquettish, playful, a brat, a frightened child, and at times mature beyond her years. How Malle managed the nudity scenes with her I'll never know. Without saying a single word Carradine produced the most poignant scene in the film when Violet asks, "Can't we all go?" as her mother returns to reclaim her. Throughout the film the silence of characters was astounding: the look in the eyes of the piano player as Violet was being auctioned off. The auction itself! What a travesty. The flavor of turn-of-the-century New Orleans was rich with decadence and bawdiness. If ever a child was a product of her environment, Violet was. Yes, this was a disturbing film, but there redeeming qualities to it. See if you can find them.

Experience!

[cewephobia_romeo · 6/10 · 8 September 2013]

This drama has its potential, but somehow it failed me. There's no actual plot or whatsoever, you'll know how the movie ends just by watching the first 10-15 minutes. The characters did an amazing job(actually), but the directing is just so bad it's bothering. You feel like you watch a stage opera, not a movie. It feels like they're trying to remember the lines and all. Except for Brooke, there are no other character worth mentioning. I won't talk about part that make this movie a controversial one, I just want to state that it could be better. Definitely an experience if you had been into this genre. Must have, but no really replay value. 6/10

My brief review of the film

[sol- · 6/10 · 7 February 2006]

A rather interesting, very unusual coming-of-age tale, the film explores ideas such as the effect of one's environment on the way which one views life and normality. Keith Carradine and Susan Sarandon are both are ineffectual, working quite weak characters, but young Brook Shields does a great job in the lead role, fleshing out an excellent character. The film is marred by being overly dark at times and far too leisurely paced - the final half an hour in particular drags. It is a good film, though, and the amounts of nudity are neither in bad taste, nor in excess. Although some of the ideas and events may come off as disturbing, Malle is neither condemning nor condoning, but simply presenting. As a result, we get an interesting view on life that might seem normal to the characters in the film, if not for us.

PRETTY BABY (Louis Malle, 1978) ***

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 6 May 2006]

This was Louis Malle's first American movie and another one - like ZAZIE DANS LE METRO (1960), MURMUR OF THE HEART (1972), LACOMBE LUCIEN (1974), BLACK MOON (1975) and AU REVOIR, LES ENFANTS (1987) - which dealt with the world of children. It was also a notoriously scandalous film because of child pornography issues (the setting is a New Orleans brothel), which makes it a surprising choice for DVD release in this age of political correctness - although Paramount basically just slapped it onto disc, as it's a no-frills release (with not even a trailer to go with it)!

However, despite a notable cast (Keith Carradine, Susan Sarandon, Barbara Steele and Gerrit Graham), the film only really comes to life - after a rather wandering first half - when the Lolita-esquire elements of the Brooke Shields character take center stage. As a matter of fact, Shields became an international superstar with her role in PRETTY BABY - which is similar to the one played by Jodie Foster in TAXI DRIVER (1976). Malle does not shrink from showing its protagonists (especially 12 year-old Shields) in the nude - but it's always tastefully presented, i.e. in a non-exploitative manner. Besides, the film's period reconstruction is impeccable...

The Facts Which Scare Us

[wolfofthepride · 7/10 · 17 February 2010]

Of course, this film is controversial, but it is mostly, if not completely, factual. It's the DEEP SOUTH, people. That's classic New Orleans. Catholic whores, whipping, swamps, children in the whorehouses, racism, the accent, the voodoo, the attitude, the sexuality. It's all part of the Deep South in the 20th Century. The only things missing are the crawdads and Mardi Gras. And I can understand the bad reviews, but those of you who do not think this is an excellent film do not understand the era nor the neck of the woods.

What I liked about this film is the actuality. There are still actual whores who are 12 or younger. They are in the underbelly of the city, banned from the French Quarter. Of course, the whores portrayed were high-class. They were those one would find on Bourbon Street, although Bourbon's whores are much lower than that now. When Storyville was still running, the Red Light District would promote each slut it had. Even Madame Nell knows to auction off a preteen's virginity is illegal, but it still happened.

I'm glad this film was made. Of course, American directors don't have the guts to display this kind of truth. I understand it may not have been necessary to show Shields nude, but if anyone has read the trivia, it states a large number of young girls turned the role down. Her parents obviously knew what was going to happen and still allowed her to participate. It was a role which not every preteen could portray. Shields was extremely mature and played her part very well. I wouldn't say it's pedophilia. There are some who may find pleasure in a twelve- year-old's lady parts, but Bellocq loved her for her innocence. He even asks her to not speak as a whore.

It's real. It's what actually happened. It's not what would have happened today, but it is truthful. It was a different time in a different place. For instance, Edgar Allan Poe, one of the greatest American writers in history, married his own cousin. This may be strange today, but back then, it may, repeat may, have been common. In Ancient Egypt, pharaohs married their own sisters before their twentieth birthdays. This made more sense, though: they wanted to keep their bloodline pure, and puberty is the time when the body is ready to conceive and reproduce. Therefore, the teen years were originally meant for marriage.

It's not out of pornography that Malle created this film. It's out of truth. It is true. Today, still. The movie showed exactly what all of you who despise this film believe. It took a lot of thought to produce this film. The architecture, the plant life, the community, the underage drinking. From what I've seen and known growing up around the Big Easy, it's all pretty much true. I believe what you dislike is that it actually happened. It's a historical film. It's factual. New Orleans has changed, but there is no escape of the past. The Saints just won the SuperBowl after 43 years of failure. We can't escape the fact that our first playoff game was in 1990, 23 years after the team manifested. We can't escape the fact that Katrina's devastation could have been slimly less grim because those who were too hard-headed to flee stayed and died. We can't escape the fact that we have been the murder capital of the United States. We can escape the fact that we are the murder capital of the United States, but only for the same reason that so many of you are complaining. Times have changed, but those times are forever in history. Times will change again. Fortunately, we weren't too late for the times to change and this movie to never have existed.

Beautifully made

[Dale65 · 10/10 · 5 July 1999]

Louis Malle is one of the late geniuses of film. "Pretty Baby" is one of his most beautiful achievements. Telling the story of a lonely photographer's obsession with a precocious twelve-year old prostitute named Violet(Brooke Shields) in New Orleans early in the century.

The photographer (Keith Carradine) eventually allows Violet to move in with him, and then marries her. In a wonderful scene, Carradine buys Violet a baby doll. She is thrilled, but then asks why he bought her a doll. "Every child should have a doll" he replies. Shields reaction is perfect, she is angered that he still thinks of her as a child, but cannot help but play with the doll in the very next scene.

Shields hits all the right notes here. She goes from sexy and alluring, to childish and innocent with a snobbish pout. She is charmingly free-spirited from being raised in a brothel, and often appears totally naked in front of strange men many times her age. Prostitution is all that she knows, and Malle does not shy away from it.

This film was largely shunned when it was first released. It seems, having read some of the other comments here, that the trend continues. This is a mature film, for mature minds. See it and enjoy.

Dillemas, Dillemas

[anna-42 · 7/10 · 29 May 1999]

What a dilemma! As a feminist, I feel that I should be deploring this movie right now. However, I enjoyed it immensely. I felt that the subject of child prostitution was very well handled, and that (surprisingly enough), Brooke Shield's performance was very textured and real. As outlandish as the whole thing was, Louis Malle really sucked me into that turn of the century red light district world, and thankfully did not bludgeon me over the head with exploitation or heavy handed tragedy. I'm still not very sure where the moral center of the movie was located, but I think that was Malle's point-- that it's a good idea to question and re-evaluate all taboo subjects to understand why they are taboo in the first place.

An Ancient Monument to Seventies Permissiveness

[JamesHitchcock · 5/10 · 31 July 2012]

"Pretty Baby" is set in 1917 in Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans. At one time the city was notorious for legally tolerated prostitution, although this came to an end because of pressure from the Army and Navy following America's entry into World War I, shortly after the events depicted in the film. The main characters are Hattie, a prostitute working in a high-class brothel, her 12-year-old daughter, Violet, and Ernest J. Bellocq, a photographer obsessed with taking photographs of the brothel and its inhabitants. (Bellocq was a real historical individual, Hattie and Violet are fictitious). Bellocq is not just obsessed with photography; he also becomes obsessed with young Violet whom he marries, despite her tender years, after the brothel madam has auctioned off her virginity to the highest bidder.

There are some similarities between this film and another controversial seventies film about child prostitution, Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver". Both films introduced a young actress who would go on to become a well-known star, Brooke Shields here and Jodie Foster in Scorsese's film, and both girls give quite remarkable performances characterised by a disturbing mixture of innocence and sexual precocity. Foster has become one of the cinema's most accomplished actresses, whereas, in my view at least, Shields has never really risen to the same heights, although she has remained a well-known Hollywood name. Here, however, the young Brooke's performance is marked by a greater emotional depth and immediacy than she has achieved in many of her roles as an adult, and she is certainly the best thing about the film, together with its elegant recreation of the period.

Shields apart, however, the acting does not amount to much. In 1978 Susan Sarandon was a young actress on the verge of becoming a major star, but here as Hattie she does not really show much evidence of this. As for Keith Carradine as Bellocq, his mannered and languid acting is just dull. He had been much better the previous year in "The Duellists".

It is, moreover, not just Carradine's acting that is languid; Louis Malle's direction means that the film itself moves at a stately, almost funereal, pace. It is in nothing like the same class as "Taxi Driver", which had a contemporary rather than a period setting. Scorsese's film is notable for its tension, its emotional power, its fine characterisation and its social comment, all of which are lacking here.

"Pretty Baby" may be set in 1917, but it is very much a film of its time, one that today tells you more about the 1970s than it does about the 1910s. In 2012, given modern fears about paedophilia, a film about a twelve-year-old prostitute which included scenes of her naked would be almost as unthinkable as it would have been in the days of the Production Code. In the good old nineteen-seventies, however, there was a widely-held feeling that every film director worthy of the name- certainly every auteur director worthy of the name- was under a solemn duty to break as many taboos as he possibly could, without regard to traditional views of morality or decency, and Malle, who had previously made "Le Soufflé au Coeur" about mother-son incest, was clearly an auteur of this stamp. The film was quite controversial at the time, although not nearly as controversial as a film on this subject would be today.

With many once-controversial works of art, the conventional modern reaction is to raise one eyebrow and to ask, rhetorically, "What was all the fuss about?" With "Pretty Baby" a more likely reaction would be to ask, non-rhetorically, "Why wasn't there more fuss?" Malle's artistic freedom was defended by many critics who today would be howling for his lynching from the nearest lamp-post. That said, the film is still widely available on DVD and is occasionally shown on television, having acquired something of the status of a historical artifact. Perhaps that is how it deserves to be best-remembered, as an ancient monument to a curious type of seventies permissiveness. It manages to achieve the strange feat of being simultaneously controversial and boring. 5/10

Most Friendship is Feigning, Most Loving Mere Folly.

[rmax304823 · 8/10 · 5 February 2004]

There are a couple of reasons to see this well-executed movie.

One is Brooke Shields in her only believable performance, as a defiant self-absorbed brat who learns not just about sex but about love. She is, of course, dazzlingly beautiful and barely pubescent and it's necessary to get beyond that. Value judgments about whether she should or should not have made this movie aren't really relevant. The movie is too good for that. Throwing up our hands and rolling our eyes is a little like interpreting "Lolita" as a simple story about pedophilia. Looked at pragmatically, Shields' playing this role hurt no one. Certainly it didn't hurt her subsequent career, what there was of it. There isn't any way to stop our own feelings of disgust at times, granted. I feel that way about movies like Friday the 13th or Halloween. I'm more disgusted by murder than by sex so I'm clearly warped. Shields packs more talent into her playing here, as Violet, than she did into all of her other movies put together. And it's not a one-note performance either. She develops from a vulgar know-it-all into a creature of real emotion. At the end of the story, her mother is taking her away from the older man she has married. The camera slowly moves in on her trembling face. She's silent but the froufraws in her hair quiver with regret. Malle ends it on a freeze frame of that drop-dead gorgeous, wrenchingly sad face.

Malle is another reason this movie is worth while. He was a great story teller, even when the stories were a bit thin, as Polly Platt's is here. His specialite de la maison was the study of a community. He was almost anthropological in his approach. If he doesn't give us the social structure and eidos of a French boarding school, then it's Atlantic City, or a New Orleans whorehouse in 1917. We get to know the milieu pretty well, although we don't see much of the actual city, only the house itself, its back yard paved with coquina crunching under everyone's shoes, the palms and banana plants, the anoles. We get to know the furniture inside the house -- massive heavy things, overstuffed, overdone, overlaced, rose windowed. New Orleans was an odd city, a blend of all sorts of ethnic traditions. There's a bit of hoodoo thrown into the plot. (Madame Livingston addresses her clients as "M'sieur.") Edgar Degas visited relatives in New Orleans. Now, alas, it's becoming not much more than another big Southern city with the Quarter serving as a kind of theme park. Note too Malle's editing technique. When you expect a shot to disappear, to dissolve or be cut away from, it doesn't always happen. The image lingers, sometimes long beyond our expectations. Keith Carradine balked when Shields is taken away from him, for instance.

Much of this beauty (let's call a heart a heart) is made possible by the superb photography of Ingmar Bergman's collaborator, Sven Nyquist. He makes it possible for us to almost feel the heat and the humidity, and the solid mahogany of the bar.

The depiction of the cat house is convincingly realistic, the general atmosphere being one of casual jealousy, petulance, nudity, practicality, and mutual support. The women (and the clients) form fleeting friendships. When they leave, it's without any particular ceremony. That's why the love that develops between Carradine and Shields is as shocking as it is. It's the only real commitment shown in the film. There is an abundance of commitment on the part of the people who contributed to this very good film.

'A virgin, bona fide.' ...

[punishmentpark · 7/10 · 31 January 2014]

After seeing Eva Ionesco in Roman Polanski's 'The Tenant', and then digging a little deeper into the facts of her life, I remembered I had the DVD of 'Pretty Baby', which was partly inspired by her story, even if another story (that of photographer E.J. Bellocq and the prostitutes of Storyville, New Orleans) was obviously at least an equally big inspiration. Louis Malle begins the portrayal of this Storyville slowly and with care; we enter a whorehouse and get to know its inhabitants as human beings trying to get by in their day to day. The prostitutes, the pianist, the madam, the bouncer, the customers and... the children. It doesn't matter how careful you'll go about telling a story like this, it wíll have its impact. Then the story proceeds, and young Violet's initiation becomes a fact. Malle finds a balance between telling the facts as straight up as possible and showing a world that is filled with hopes, loves and other human follies and reveries against all odds.

The nudity of Brooke Shields feels rather natural, but we all know that sort of thing doesn't fly anymore - and with good reason. The acting is pretty good, especially Keith Carradine's, but Shields' job is truly commendable. The story is just about satisfactory, but it sort of meanders without really digging deep into certain dramatic aspects - maybe that is actually the charm of it.

A good 7 out of 10.

Absolutely Horrible...

[arson83 · 1/10 · 13 November 2003]

This movie is famous for one thing and one thing only - Brooke Shield as a naked twelve-year-old. This movie should be famous for nothing.

It's a story that fakes its way throughout the entire movie. The movie wants to have a heart - showing a grown man kissing a naked preteen is not showing heart. Or courage. Or entertainment.

Besides this movie being extremely distubring, it really is bad. Made in 1978 and set in 1917, I hope it is not an accurate description of the time period, or I would have killed myself if I lived then.

Did this film want to show the horrors of the brothels in World War I? Well, if it did, it did not need to show a naked 12 year old whose mother would do anything to get her famous. Even if Brooke Shields wasn't naked, this movie would still be absolutely unbearable.

Shame on HBO for showing this movie more than once in the past week. Shame on me for watching it.

1/10.