Pretty Baby
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Movie Reviews of Pretty Baby
Movie Review: Good
Summary: 5 Stars
Every thing arrived in good order and in good time
I could not confirm that I am over 13 because the check mark didn't work this time I confer now that I am fifty years older than thirteen.
Movie Review: Yeah
Summary: 5 Stars
Now a days a movie like this would never see the light if day. But damn Brooke shields looked great with out anything onMovie Review: pretty baby...
Summary: 5 Stars
i give this movie a 5 just because i felt "empathy" throughout the whole movie. when it finished i felt drained.Movie Review: Absolutely a great movie
Summary: 4 Stars
Great movies, like great literature, are capable of evoking a definite atmosphere, that of the time and setting of the story, the plot of which, then, almost loses significance. The atmosphere in this case is that of New Orleans at the turn of last century - a slight anachronism here sets the story in 1917 to match the timing of the closure of Storyville, New Orleans's red light district, located roughly between Rampart and Robeson, Iberville and St. Louis, of which nothing remains today. That atmosphere is well expressed by the music, especially that of the pianist in the movie, who is modeled after Jelly Roll Morton, a pioneer jazz pianist and composer, and plays his compositions. For the curious listener, I have listed here some of the works by Jelly Roll and when they get played in the movie:
3:30 - 4:45, Winin's Boy Blues #1
5:05 - 7:21, Tiger's Rag, from the typical NO repertory, including the tiger's roar
24:35 - 25:00, Jelly Roll
26:11 - 27:12, Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say #1
30:10 - 31:30, Winin' Boy Blues #2
38:39 - 43:20, (composing of ) King Porter Stomp, in the background when the Susan Sarandon character poses half-naked for the photographer
54:46 - 56:35, (Original Jelly Roll?) Blues, with clarinet and bass
1:47:15 - 1:49:15 Blues
We can add to this the sweet, though perhaps already outdated by 1917, music played by the New Orleans Ragtime Orchestra, with the nice Creole clarinet of Louis Cottrell, who used to play in the Preservation Hall.
It is impossible to underestimate the importance of New Orleans in the world of culture, since it can be stated, as Jelly Roll Morton did, that it was for the musical world what Florence of the 14th and 15th century was for the visual arts. The fact that such culture flourished in whorehouses instead at the courts of princes is thus just a reflection of the cultural level of racist American society - which should be proud of its lupanars - which has prevented its own great culture to be accepted by its puritanical obsession, which led to the disaster of prohibition and the present overfilling of prisons for acts, such as possessing marijuana, which are not criminal in most of the civilized world.
Beside the music, there are great moments in this movie. Brooke Shields, besides being pretty, has an interesting role, oscillating between her behavior as a future [prostitute] and that of an immature girl, with a lot of innocence - which incidentally is to be found among all those ladies certainly despised by the pseudo-moralistic mainstream, that same one which seems so popular these days in the US. The Madam looks like a true character, a worn out woman with distinguished manners who keeps up with absinthe and cocaine (not without some humor, as when she says: "there are only two things you can do in a rainy day, and I don't like playing cards!"). And I am sure that the character of the distinguished photographer existed in reality, since I remember having seen an exhibition of pictures of such ladies taken in New Orleans at that time (in spite of the howling of some who wanted to label it degrading and censor it). Add to this the great photography, and the intelligence of Louis Malle, who has always used Jazz in a respectful way, as in "Elevator to the Gallows" with the music of Miles Davis and "Murmur of Heart" with that of Charlie Parker - the latter exploring an even more controversial subject than "Pretty Baby", that of an incest with the mother, in a poetic way.
The only reason I am not giving this movie five stars is because I would have loved to see more of the Jelly Roll Morton character. One has almost to strain his/her ear to listen to his composing of the masterpiece "King Porter Stomp" while the photographer tries to take pictures of Hattie (Susan Sarandon). Perhaps some viewers may prefer Sarandon's naked tits over Morton's playing, but that's not my case!
But on the whole this is a great movie and is to be recommended heartily to everybody, perhaps especially to Americans who generally know close to nothing of the great culture which has been created in the very places their society has systematically despised, by people which are still often considered as an inferior "race" (whatever that means).
Movie Review: Good story.
Summary: 4 Stars
I really liked the story it was well writen and very well acted. They did a good job of bring the past alive, this brothel was not a safe happy place. They start the movie with a nice plesent scene, violet is roaming around with the paino playing and every seems happy but it doesn't take long and this world to be shown in the light and the happness is empty...
To really understand this movie one must understand the time it was set in 1917, WWI had been raging for 4 years and everyone's mind set was one of shock and fear no one beleived they lived in a safe world, but go back 5 or 6 years ealery and the mind set was totaly different and ppl were livng in a fantasy world where they beleived they were safe and the world around them was a safe one. Open scene Violet is skiping happly through the brothel she lives in without a care of fear in the world and beleving her world is a safe one, her mother on the other hand was wiser and older and she knew the hell she was living in. I liked the 2 adventures these two ladies took, it made the story more beleiveable and it also made you understand why they mde the choices they made. For example at early point in the movie when Violet's mother wanted to leave and how Violet wouldn't leave, that made total since to me, there was no reason for her to leave let she thought she had everything she wanted she was living in her fanstay pre WWI world. Than when Violet's mother does leave and they begin to shater her world and the cold truth of life in a brothel is revealed to her it makes those parts even more powerful. I liked the parts where the guy was shooting the gun radomly into the air, the part where they auctioned off Violet, and also the part where Violet was in the bath and the old women came up to show her off, and finaly the part where they was thrown out into the streets, thoes were all great parts of the movie the added to show Violet what the real world is like also helped to grow her charecter so at the end when she faces the same choice she had in the begining she knows the dangers of the real world and makes the right choice, and if nothing had happened to shater her world the choice she made wouldn't have made any since.
It is a wonderful story the only problem I had with the movie is I didn't really care to have a 12 year old girl running around nude in this movie, yes because of the setting of the movie it wouldn't have made any since not to inculde them I just think they should have found an 18 year old girl that looked like brook shields for a stand in. My second problem with this movie is they were way to easy on the guy who married Violet, he hit, had sex with and threw out a naked 12 year old girl into the streets, he should have either been sent to prison for life or shot by the end of the movie, not just let off with a broken heart. Other than that I really enjoyed this movie