Rating: 
Summary: Kiddie Porn
Review: ... I think that Malle put this flick out as art as I saw it when it first came out, but there are perverts out there that love seeing preteen chicks exploted. ...
Rating: 
Summary: A distinctly Gallic view of sexuality...
Review: ...this movie should be remarked, as the Amazon reviewer correctly notes, also for the utterly beautiful camera-work.
And Sarandon, before her manic obsession with politics, like Alec Baldwin and others, shimmers with talent and we're treated to her full genius, something little scene (pun intended) these last ten years as "activism" has dissipated the sap that once nourished the talent in this once brilliant actress. (See this descent in her jarring overacting in "Children of Dune; marring an otherwise excellent adaptation.)
The "scandal" is highly overblown. As for the movie "being unable to be made today", that's an odd statement. Thora Birch went topless at the age of seventeen. Kirsten Dunst engaged in full mouth kiss with Brad Pitt in "Vampire", and Led Zeppelin's "Houses of Holy" with dozens of naked children on it, can still be bought even at Wal-Mart and BestBuy. I know of no prosecurtor who has brought charges of child porn against the producers of any of these films or the parents of the children. And this movie's still obviously available to everyone within the US by its mere presence on Amazon.
Even more notable is that the "scandalous" scenes haven't been cut in an "abridged" version by the supposedly craven studio(s). However, this could be due to Malle's ownership of it.
If this film really was child porn does anyone think Amazon would sell it?
Frankly, this movie's tame compared to much of garbage readily available, 24-7, thanks to the wonders of cable.
The difference? Malle's work has clear, artistic intent. The nude scenes of the sparkling beauty of Shields, those eyes even then so powerful, were necessary to the plot. Doubltess, controversy in the Anglo-Saxon world wasn't unanticipated, and certainly added to the box office; but its (obviously) enduring popularity is proven by its presence here.
As for the film itself, like all of Malle's work, it's a love-hate affair. He either hits his mark or misses to the point of (possible Anglo-Saxon) incoherence. Here he mostly hits his target, offering, in an American environment and in English, the very different French view of sexuality.
If you're looking for a readily excessible way to grasp some part of the Gallic mindset, this film may help.
Rating: 
Summary: The bitter loneliness behind the red light house
Review: A brothel is the saddest place in the world. Malle however finds a dark poetry behind the red house light and gives a beautiful intimate portrait since the point of view of a little girl.
Malle always kept in the deepest of his soul the childhood memories , and this is a direct heritage from the French Mew Wave. And this statement is supported by two essential films of him *Zazie dans le metro* from 1961 and *Au revoir les enfants* (one of his four masterpieces) from 1986 who deserved him an Academy Award as best foreigner film.
This film literally made grow up to Susan Sarandon as a top actress in a demanding role. Jodie Foster made this role without too much effort , probably due her before playing in Taxi Driver.
The script is astonishing and surrounded of a bitter atmosphere.
One little gem and a cult movie from this brilliant french director.
Rating:
Summary: BROOKE SPARKLES!!
Review: After making a series of acclaimed and controversial films in his native France, director Louis Malle made his American debut with this disturbing but visually beautiful story about Hattie (Susan Sarandon), a prostitute working in New Orleans' Storyville district at the turn of the century. When Hattie becomes pregnant, she opts to keep her baby and gives birth to a daughter named Violet, raising her in the brothel where she continues to work. Twelve years later, Violet (Brooke Shields) is old enough to attract the attentions of the brothel's customers, but emotionally has one foot in the adult world of her surroundings and the other in the naïveté of childhood. With Hattie's consent, Violet's virginity is auctioned off to the customers of the house; but for Violet, the pull between childhood and adulthood becomes most clear - and most painful - when she draws the affections of Bellocq (Keith Carradine), a photographer who has been working on a photo series about Storyville prostitutes. Violet's blend of childlike innocence and adult sensuality is profoundly attractive to him, but their relationship quickly becomes problematic, especially when Hattie leaves Violet behind to get married.
This movie also has a great ragtime soundtrack and this music helps with the story too.
Rating: 
Summary: no censorship
Review: As far as I could tell, there was absolutely no censorship of the scene where Violet is thrown out of the house. It looks different because instead of being in the middle of the screen (in the pan & scan version), she's off to the side a bit. Regardless, there's no ambiguity about Brooke's state of dress. The print used isn't the best, and there's no special features, so I wouldn't say this is much of an upgrade from the VHS version.
Rating:
Summary: Only Louis Malle could have made this film
Review: Brooke Shields is as gorgeous as a little girl can be. Her beauty really rivets you to the screen. Louis Malle keeps the camera on her as often and for as long as possible, reminding me that some years ago Brooke Shields was the most photographed model in the world. Susan Sarandon gets considerably upstaged. However as far as acting goes, Brooke ranged from amateurish to competent to flashes of delight. She was good, so good I would say in comparing her to later roles, that she has regressed. But perhaps it was Louis Malle's direction that made her seem so natural.Sarandon was flawless and seamless as usual (and never looked better). The long takes on the faces of the characters was noticeable but short of annoying. The sets were almost magical. They seemed so natural without all the usual, "Look folks, this is 1917!" kind of feeling you usually get with period piece photography. The milieu of the whore house in New Orleans in which little Violet wanders about in every room and every nook and at any time, day or night, seems natural and unforced. It's a huge child's playground in effect for the twelve-year-old who yearns to out-do mommie in being desirable to the johns. The story line is strangely reserved. You keep expecting some real horror to explode in your face, and then you expect a heart sickening tragedy, Violet to be mutilated by one of her johns or perhaps exploited by some sick man, but the worst she gets is deflowered and slapped. The madame of the house (played brilliantly by an actress whose name I don't know) has her whipped for something, but she skips away from that saying it didn't hurt and runs off to the photographer she likes, played perhaps too Victorianly by Keith Carradine. I got the feeling he couldn't make up his mind whether he was Toulouse Lautrec, Vincent Van Gogh or Professor Henry Higgins and decided to go with all three. I expected to see him grovel a little for Brooke, or debase himself à la Philip in Of Human Bondage, but Malle spares us that. The defining sequence in the movie, and the part that reveals the real tragedy of the little girl is when she goes to the photographer's house and they begin living together and he leaves her a note that she can't read (because she is illiterate) and we see her standing behind his iron fence watching the sailors walk by (perhaps the sailors are in her future). When he comes home and we see that her child's view of the world is so different than his, we know their relationship is doomed. But we also know that she has lost her childhood and will never have a normal adolescence. That is her tragedy. The cinematography is beautiful without calling undue attention to itself. The whore house seems real enough as a sort of French salon cum New Orleans brothel, cum Dodge City saloon. We see Brooke as close to naked as perhaps we would want. The point of the photography is to show her physical beauty, but in a naturalistic, almost nonsexual way, to show the awkwardness of the child who is about to become a woman. She never looks worse than when she's painted up and thick with lipstick. We get the point. In the scene where she is deflowered we are "threatened" with horror (she screams, the john sneaks out and they discover her motionless on the bed). But she's only joking and they all get choked up at this "rite of passage." Malle makes it like a first kiss, which for her (his point) it is. He gets to tell it like it is sometimes with young girls and men but spares us a lot of the shock by making it clear that Brooke Shields as Violet the 12-year-old prostitute is an exception to the general rule. Yet nothing is hid from us. The slavery of the prostitute's life and bondage to her trade is made clear. The tragedy of growing up in a whore house is not glossed over; it's just that the tragedy is sugar coated like our memories of childhood, and indeed the little girl has a lot of fun in the old whore house and we know that some of her memories will be fond ones. Finally, Violet's mother comes back for her. She has made a successful marriage with her rich respectable husband. Violet goes to her and although her photographer husband objects, he knows it's inevitable: he must lose her. She asks "Can't you come too?" We, along with Keith Carradine, get to fathom that for a long moment or two before he lets her go. The great thing about this scene is that the arrival of the mother and her rich husband just destroys their "marriage." Kaboom. We immediately see that the child's higher loyalty and greater love is to and for the mother and not her husband and her marriage, a relationship she does not understand. It's a strange tale, bravely told with a touch of gentle genius. I'm glad I didn't have to see all the warts, but I know they were there behind the gloss and Malle left them out on purpose: and the nearly idyllic world of the child prostitute is nothing like his fairy tale, but I thank him for it anyway; after all, these things have to be told in the form of fairy tales or myths otherwise we can't accept them.
Rating:
Summary: Her beauty is an incandescent, revelatory epiphany
Review: Cut to the scene where Brooke poses naked and tremulous for her photographer/lover: This scene, and the rest of the movie, left me questioning my habitual concepts about reality. Isn't beauty like this supposed to be available only to billionaires or dictators of major countries? Clothes on or off, Brooke's beauty is gut-wrenching. Plus beautiful photography and a beautiful love story. Thank you, God!
Rating:
Summary: Totally Awesome, one of Brook Shield's best movies!!!
Review: Dealt with a different time, and some pretty tough topics for the women characters in the movie. It's definely SEXUAL in content, but then, there would be no plot to the movie without it. I would recommend this movie to anyone interested in the French Quarter, and brothel era of New Orleans.
Rating: 
Summary: Things must have been different in 1978
Review: First I thought this was a slooooww boring movie. They could have fit everything into an hour. Second, why is this not kiddie porn? If you put up a web page with screen shots of Brook Shields from this movie (forget about copyrights for now) or identical poses with other girls of the same age, wouldn't you get in trouble for kiddie porn? Why is it being in a movie make it any different than if the picture is a still shot by itself. Were the laws about kiddie porn different back then? Were softcore nudes of underage girls considered art rather than porn? I really am curious because I was shocked when I watched this to see how young Brook was and that she was totally nude in a couple of scenes.
Rating:
Summary: Susan Sarandon's best film!
Review: For all the hype over "Thelma & Louise," et al., PRETTY BABY, hard to rent but easy to buy, is probably the best effort Susan Sarandon has ever put forth. In the prime of her youth, she displays her acting talents frequently and generously, both of them. And, even though the full frontal theatrical-release scene of Brooke Shields is cut from the video version, Sarandon takes up the slack admirably. She falls into the role of a New Orleans prostitute mother as if it required no acting at all. This film is sine qua non for soft porn collectors.
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