What makes it different from others?

Disturbing yet enthralling

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Again this is one of those movies that one either loves or literally hates it cause of the subject. The acting was pretty good, seen better tho.. The set is AMAZING !!! Totaly have that vibe of those times, not that i would know how it really was lol .. but it has that thing, just has. Also in many ways it shows how prostitution ,or as today they love to call it, escorting or sex work ... was so much different, it was more human ,more down to earth , not slutty ,whoresih ,glamour like it is today. Simply it had CLASS,as the borthels as the prostitutes. As far as Brooke goes aka Violet, she was amazing, prolly her best movie ever and thats so strange consideting it was done so so long ago, but the way she acted ,her speach, facial expressions, and how she didnt seem botered at all doing and acting a kid prostitute ,is someting to be admired about for sure. As a matter a fact i bet that if this was remade 10 times with nowadays 12yo actors, non would be able to do such a great job as Brooke did! Not to say that theres no way a movie like this would be ever made in this day and age sadly , and specially not with a real 12yo playing a 12yo whore. And of course , her beauty ,cuteness ,adds to it as well, shes with out a doubt one of the prettiest child actors EVER ,if not THE. Of course, there will be people that will play the Virgin Mary here and act like they wanna puke or something , being disgusted by a movie like this and the fact that a 12yo plays a whore, and there are nude scenes of her as well. Well, if a 20yo would play a 12yo that would look funny as hell ,nor it would be able to bring the reality of it. Secondly , i dont understand whats the big deal about seing a naked 12yo?? I mean like , you guys dont have kids? You never seen them naked? You dont know that there are actually nudist families where everyone is naked including the kids and they go out and see 1000 of others and are being seen? I just dont get all the freaking out about it ... besides, i challenge everyone with those morals that has a 12yo dau or son , to check their Instagram acc ..just dont get schocked. At the end of the day , on Instagram today , you can find hundreds of young girl models even younger then 10!!! that model , some 12-13yo ,well... almost nude ,some in very very provocative clothing and poses, all done by managing companies with the amen of the parents of course, they have 10s and 100s of thousands of followers, some of the cooments are hey sexy , hey hottie , no one seemz to be bothered by that tho? They all making big $ of it. Some people even leave comments that would be like, well.. maybe you should wait with those kind of pictures, and then they get bashed by that 13yo saying to those adult persons that they are too convservative lol .. So please stop being hypocrites , this was just a movie, yes she was naked yes she played a whore ,key word ,played , yes she was exploited in those times in general , but it was just her! but these models im talking about are REAL ,and there are thousands of them ,yet no one says anything about that?? Maybe cause the same ppl that bash on this movie are too oldish now and they know even have a clue what kind of stuff is out there on social media ,because they dont use that , and when you have a 13yo telling you that you are too conservative ,you must really think twice. Specially if you are from the States, cause you guys freak too much about stuff like this,yet you are all about diversity and acceptance.

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

This was another grown-up movie I read about as a child and was curious about that I finally got to see. Since this was the one where then 12-year-old Brooke Shields played a girl raised in a brothel where her mom Susan Sarandon worked, I wondered how I'd react to some scenes where Ms. Shields was about to be deflowered by a middle-aged man or some of her nude scenes. While I did occasionally pause at some points before anticipating such sequences, I was only mildly surprised at what was depicted or implied as director Louis Malle handled such material with great restraint. Besides the two players I mentioned, Keith Carradine also should be commended for portraying the house photographer Bellocq as someone who gets very concerned whenever Shields in particular gets treated badly yet can't always control his emotions when she misbehaves. I also liked Antonio Fargas' performance as the house piano man. All those I've just mentioned, as well as the rest of the cast and crew, should be commended for the way they depicted what it must have been like in 1917 in the Storyville section of New Orleans, Louisiana, during that time when the U.S. had just entered the first World War and the morality police were about to close places like the one depicted here. Certainly, since I live about a two-hour drive from where this all took place and was filmed in, it raised my awareness of what things were like there in the early 20th century and makes me want to learn more about it. Anyway, Pretty Baby should not be condemned as child pornography as like I said, there's no erotically explicit scenes of sex and it's not the only thing it's about anyway. And besides, Ms. Shields seems to have done all right by herself considering the subsequent films she made concerning her sexuality...

This is an exceptional film - not because most of the critics say so, but for me because I cannot think of any other film which left me with a greater feeling of having been temporarily transported to another world in a place and time with which I was totally unfamiliar.Many IMDb users have reviewed and commented on this film and another full review is unnecessary, but bringing out its exceptional nature and encouraging those who have not seen it to do so does require some supplementation. Comments about the nudity in this film not being disturbing come into this category. Today nudity occurs in films for two principal reasons, firstly because it would be natural for the character concerned under the circumstances being depicted by the film, or secondly because it is being used by the director to add a little eye candy intended to increase the visual appeal of the film. In the latter case the viewers personal reaction will govern the response to such eye candy, (typically for example, regardless of whether or not they themselves appreciate it, many viewers feel that this is very inappropriate for younger viewers and all films should provide advance warning when it is present). But where the nudity is an integral part of the story being presented, viewers who wish to see this story should not find it disturbing unless the nude scenes are excessive or gross. Pretty Baby is not such a film, it is one where Louis Malle has minimized his use of nudity - any less and the nature and character of the scenario he has to depict could become distorted. He should be commended on his restraint which may have made it much easier for some viewers to concentrate on the more serious issues raised in the film.When this film was first released the sequence showing the brothel auctioning the virginity of their new girl to the highest bidder raised a lot of eyebrows, and clearly many in the audiences had not appreciated that this practice used to be commonplace. Most viewers found the sequence disturbing, but in Pretty Baby the fact that Violet had been raised to expect this, and was looking forward to it as an important step towards entering adult life, greatly reduced its impact. Another film, French Quarter, which was released the same year as Pretty Baby, was the story of an orphaned girl who had been strictly brought up on a farm, but who had had to take refuge in a city brothel to avoid starvation when her parents died. Those who saw it will remember that it included a similar auction which I for one found much more harrowing to watch as it clearly showed the trauma inflicted on an unprepared and very reluctant young girl, starting of course as she was being stripped and paraded for public exhibition. Any such sequences provide very uncomfortable viewing for most men, who tend to thankfully take refuge in a conviction that they could never occur today.Other scenes showing the exploitation inherent in life as it was lived in Storyville in 1917 were also found to be disturbing by many viewers; and some comments even suggest a widely held conviction that we live in a more moral society today. Before we condemn our forbears we should perhaps examine this conviction in more detail. In Europe and North America we have quite recently moved away from a society where marriages among the upper classes were regarded as primarily intended to enhance social status and generate offspring. Wives frequently did not love their husbands and, although they dutifully provided children, they were often happy for him to exercise his virility with paid companions. Visits to a local brothel, where regular customers could became friendly with all the staff, were condoned or even approved. This often led to a reasonably stable environment for the young women concerned. Today most of us would strongly disapprove of such lifestyles, and would rightly emphasize how far we have progressed by ensuring young people have the opportunity to choose their own lifetime partner; but we still need to be honest about the problems this new lifestyle has created today. There were few Robert Pickton's feeding twenty-six victims to his pigs in Victorian times. Today we frequently encounter police warnings about serial killers; in Victorian times Jack the Ripper was a much more unique character. Too many of today's prostitutes shiver in the rain or snow on street corners throughout long evenings each night, periodically spending an infrequent few uncomfortable minutes in a car - each time at an unknown risk to themself - and are forced afterwards to give almost all their takings to a pimp attached to the local street gang. We need to recognize that many of them would probably regard living in a comfortable and stable brothel, such as that depicted in this film, as akin to heaven on earth.Ultimately this is the powerful message from Pretty Baby that makes it such an exceptional film; but because the Director decided to employ a totally non-judgmental documentary type presentation and to minimise any direct emotional appeal, most viewers probably only recognize it when scenes returned to their memory during the hours and days after they left the cinema, and I do not believe its rare combination of beautiful imagery and haunting power has so far been brought out adequately by the comments on this database.