Pretty Baby is a 1978 American historical drama film directed by Louis Malle, written by Polly Platt, and starring Brooke Shields, Keith Carradine, and Susan Sarandon. Set in 1917, it focuses on a 12-year-old girl being raised in a brothel in Storyville, the red-light district of New Orleans, by her prostitute mother. Barbara Steele, Diana Scarwid, and Antonio Fargas appear in supporting roles. The film is based on the true account of a young girl who was sexually exploited by being groomed to engage in prostitution as a child, a theme that was recounted in historian Al Rose's 1974 book Storyville, New Orleans: Being an Authentic Illustrated Account of the Notorious Red-Light District. It is also based on the life of photographer Ernest Bellocq, who photographed various New Orleans prostitutes in the early 20th century.

Commenting on the production, Malle stated "Pretty Baby was harder than I expected, and in the meantime, I fell in love with America." After filming was completed, Malle chose to become a U.S. resident and stayed there for the remainder of his life.

Release

Marketing

thumb|upright|Theatrical advertisement, 1978

Despite Malle's concerted effort to make the film sanitized of explicit sex, it received significant salacious pre-publicity leading up to its release, including a lengthy article by Joan Goodman in New York Magazine, which described it as "Lolita, only in period costume and much more explicit." Malle's brother, Vincent, commented that the film's pre-publicity was calculated by Malle and "absolutely deliberate. ... It was not something imposed on him by Paramount." and Saskatchewan (until 1995). Gossip columnist Rona Barrett called the film "child pornography", with director Malle being described as a "combination of Lolitas Humbert Humbert and the (by that point) controversial director Roman Polanski". For five years, the film was also banned by the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Sarandon reflected on the film's censorship in a later interview, commenting that the censors "were looking for something. The film was disturbing ... [yet] clearly when you look at it, it doesn't have anything graphic. Even at that time, it was pretty tame." These proposed cuts were put to the film's director, Louis Malle, who was very reluctant to make any changes to his film, although ultimately agreed to the changes made to the film. The film was passed X and released in 1978.

The uncut version was released on DVD in 2006.

Home media

Paramount Home Entertainment released the film on DVD on November 18, 2003. In 2022, the Australian film label Imprint Films released it for the first time on Blu-ray in a special edition, which included an interview with Shields, in which she recalled shooting the film as well as its controversial reception. Kino Lorber announced in January 2023 the forthcoming release of a North American Blu-ray.

Reception

Box office

The movie was met with a lackluster response from moviegoers. It performed poorly in terms of box office revenue, failing to even make it into the top 50 highest-grossing films of both 1978 and 1979. By December 31, 1978, it only generated $4.13 million in theatrical rentals. Despite its $3 million budget, the film was unable to generate enough ticket sales to cover its production costs.

Critical response

Pretty Baby divided critics at the time of its release. Film critic Kenneth Turan praised Shields's performance as "chilling," but felt the film largely boasts a "flat, uninvolving directorial style ... Like its protagonist, Pretty Baby is something of a carnival attraction, nothing more."-->

On the other hand, Variety wrote that "the film is handsome, the players nearly all effective, but the story highlights are confined within a narrow range of ho-hum dramatization." Mountain Xpress critic Ken Hanke, looking at the film from the perspective of 2003, said of Pretty Baby: "It was once shocking and dull. Now it's just dull."

, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 71% of 28 critics had given the film a favorable review, with a weighted average of 6.88/10.

Accolades

The film won the Technical Grand Prize at the 1978 Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for the Palme d'Or. A documentary titled Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, which charts the actress's career and partly focuses on the film's impact on her, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2023, ahead of a streaming release via Hulu in April 2023.

In 2003, The New York Times placed Pretty Baby on its list of the Best 1,000 Movies Ever.

References

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  • Making of Pretty Baby: Photo Gallery