is entranced by Violet's beauty, youth, and photogenic face. She is frustrated by Bellocq's devotion to his photography and lack of care for her as a dependent, as much as he is frustrated by the reality that she is a child. Violet eventually returns to Nell's after quarreling with Bellocq, but social reform groups are forcing the brothels of Storyville to close. Bellocq arrives to wed Violet, ostensibly to protect her from the larger world. Two weeks after the wedding, Hattie and her husband arrive from St. Louis to collect Violet, claiming that her marriage is illegal without their consent. Bellocq does not want to let Violet go. Violet asks if he will go with her and her family. Upon hearing that she does in fact want to go with them, he lets her leave without him, realizing that schooling and a more conventional life will benefit her greatly. Cast Production Following her acclaimed performance as a child prostitute in Taxi Driver (1976), the studio was keen on casting Jodie Foster as Violet. However, Malle rejected the idea as he thought the role should be played by a 12-year-old only, and Foster was 14. Brooke Shields maintains that it was no big deal to shoot her nude scenes. "I did not experience any distress or humiliation," she writes. What she does remember was trying not to look as if "I'd just sucked on a lemon" before her on-screen kiss with 29-year-old Keith Carradine ("Keith was so kind," she writes) and being soundly slapped – on-screen and for real – by Susan Sarandon. Film music ABC Records released a soundtrack of the film's ragtime score, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adaptation Score in the "Adaptation Score" category. Content and rating Pretty Baby received an R rating in the United States, an X rating in the United Kingdom (18 following a change to the ratings system), and an R18+ rating in Australia, for nudity and sexual content. Continuing controversy over Shields's nude scenes resulted in the film being banned in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Saskatchewan until 1995. Gossip columnist Rona Barrett called the film "child pornography", and director Louis Malle was described as a "combination of Lolitas Humbert Humbert and (by that point) controversial director Roman Polanski". In Argentina, the film, along with another of Paramount's recent releases (Looking for Mr. Goodbar), was banned under the