An eleven-year-old Brooke Shields is wearing all white while holding a sparkler and reclining on a padded stretcher being held aloft by an adult on each end, paraded around a dining room where a group of wealthy men are appraising her. This feels like something out of Pasolini’s Salo as, like something out of that film, these men are about to bid furiously in an auction for who will take her virginity.
But this film is 1978’s Pretty Baby, a film that is as controversial today as it was when it was made. And yet, I doubt this film could be made today. OK, I hope it couldn’t be made today. I was as uncomfortable with this as I was with the notorious original album cover for Blind Faith’s 1969 release.
Bobbie Gentry gave the world the song “Fancy” that same year, and this movie feels a bit like a dramatization of the lyrics from that. In the same way the character of that song was turned out by her mother, it is Susan Sarandon, as Shields’s mother, who introduces her to the life.
Not that it makes things any better, but Shields is at least aware of the practicalities of the act, as they reside in a bordello. Fellow prostitutes there include Diana Scarwid, who went on to Mommie Dearest and Silkwood, and Barabara Steele. I would love to know how 60’s gothic horror staple Steele came to be cast in this. Then there’s a woman (without a portrait pic on IMDB, it is hard to say which actress this is) who is even shorter than Shields, which must be how men who might be interested in young girl satisfied their urges before Shields joined the workforce. Also in the cast is Antonio Fargas as the piano player for the establishment.
But perhaps the most interesting character is the madam, played by Frances Faye. Her performance is interesting as it is clearly being delivered by a non-actor, but she immediately draws our attention each time she’s on the screen. This is the kind of character I believe when they start off the day with a shot of absinthe—some hair of the green fairy that bit them. This is a weary, jaded soul who says things like, “I have seen it a hundred times. I am old, and life is so long.” And yet, she still seems to care a great deal for her employees, even if she expresses no reservations when Shields makes her “debut”.
That scene, which I mentioned earlier, is deeply disturbing. The faces of the men in the rather large group of bidders shows an array of emotions, with one guy looking more than a bit scared and another looking downright angry. I bet that guy is the customer Scarwid had in mind when she told Shields the girl should act like has no knowledge of what is about to happen, that she should let it be “like a rape”. One of the most interesting decisions director Louis Malle made for this shoot is to spend a long period of the frantic bidding instead on a close-up of Fargas’s impassive face, which communicates a great deal by his lack of expression.
Among the patrons, the most unusual is Keith Carradine. He must be spending a lot of money at the bar, as he never seems to using any of the services which are the establishment’s stated purpose. He only takes photographs, first of Sarandon and then of Shields. When her mother marries and moves to Missouri, Shields initially decided to stay beyond and work at the bordello, only to eventually run away to stay with Carradine. It is no surprise this is not a match that would last for long.
In a movie full of strong performances, Shields outshines them all, and this is all the more surprising given her age. Despite my discomfort at seeing her being sexualized at such a young age, this is somehow a more tasteful movie than Blue Lagoon, which was made two years after this. She exudes the presence of somebody with a knowledge beyond their years, while also maintaining a natural energy and goofiness that only a child can have. That she looks like how she would as an adult, only smaller, makes it even more surreal to see her in such bits as her running around in a barn, chasing chickens and growling. Odd how she never did that in a Jordache jeans commercial.
The perspective of the film is interesting as it chooses to be fully objective. There is an obviously deliberate attempt to not cast judgment on any of the characters or their behaviors or actions we witness. That said, I didn’t feel entirely comfortable with that, and am unsure as to whether that is a better approach to such material than something that takes a moral stance. I feel like the viewer is made complicit in some of the actions we see if there isn’t some sort of commentary.
Pretty Baby is not so much plot-driven as it is a character study and a snapshot of a period in time. In a way, it is not only conveying the atmosphere and life of a New Orleans bordello during WWI, but it also says a great deal about our attitudes towards sex and girls at the time this film was made. I’m hoping that, if I had seen this back when it was originally released, my reaction would be akin to the bordello patron who is repulsed by the auctioning off of Shields’s virginity: “It gives me queasy innards to see a thing like that.”
Dir: Louis Malle
Starring Brooke Shields, Keith Carradine, Susan Sarandon
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray