Pretty Baby (1978)

All i can say is it was child porn and by todays standards and laws anybody would be arrested who owned this piece of drek

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

Upon its release in 1978 Pretty Baby was shocking and controversial. Maybe all the controversy obscured the fact it was not a particularly good film. The film was famous for displaying a naked 12 year-old Brooke Shields. And that does indeed prove to be as uncomfortable to view as you would imagine. Yes, it's a story about child prostitution but that story surely could have been told without putting Shields on such display. And what of that story? Is it a good enough one to hold your interest and make for a compelling, entertaining film? Not really.The film is set in New Orleans in 1917. Life moved a little more slowly back then and Pretty Baby mirrors that. The whole film has a very languid feel to it. The pacing is slow bordering on glacial. The action, such as it is, centers on a brothel. Shields plays Violet, who lives in the house with her prostitute mother Hattie, played by Susan Sarandon. The film establishes the goings-on and routines of the house. Young Violet is not herself a prostitute. Yet. A photographer, Bellocq, shows up to take some portraits of the prostitutes. He also takes an interest in Violet, though certainly not in a sexual way. He actually seems quite asexual, hanging around the brothel constantly but with no interest in partaking in the goods on offer. The time inevitably comes for Violet to start selling herself. Her virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder. She's excited, her mother's excited. Bellocq's not excited, he sees it for the disgusting spectacle that it is. But the deed is done, Violet becomes a full-fledged mini-prostitute and things unsurprisingly unravel from there.There is a potentially interesting, if very uncomfortable, story in here. But the film never really takes off. Right from the beginning it's a film desperately struggling for momentum and it's a struggle it never wins. It's just dull. The dialogue is rather forced and clunky with Sarandon and Keith Carradine, playing Bellocq, forced to spout lines which sound completely unnatural. The most natural, and probably best, performance in the film comes from the young Shields. Discomfiting nudity aside she's the best thing the film had to offer. Of course nobody puts the nudity to the side, that's the first thing people talk about when discussing the film. If it was a good film the Shields controversy would be an unfortunate distraction. As it is, it's not a very good film. The whole thing is just unfortunate.

In 1917, in the red light district Storyville, New Orleans, the prostitute Hattie (Susan Sarandon) lives with her twelve year-old daughter Violet (Brooke Shields) in the fancy brothel of Madame Nell (Frances Faye), where she works. The photographer Ernest J. Bellocq (Keith Carradine) has an attraction to Hallie and Violet and he is an habitué of the whorehouse.One day, Madame Nell auctions Violet's virginity and the winner pays the fortune of US$ 400.00 to spend the night with the girl. Then Hattie marries a wealthy client and moves to Saint Louis, leaving Violet in the brothel alone. Violet decides to marry Bellocq and she moves to his house. Until the day that Hattie, who has overcome her past, comes to Bellocq's house with the intention to take Violet with her."Pretty Baby" is one of the boldest coming of age film, even thirty-four years after its release date. The story of a very young prostitute, apparently based on a true story, is supported by the beauty of the only promising Brooke Shields, great cast, magnificent cinematography and the talent of Louis Malle that keeps the film in the level of art and never vulgar. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): Not Available