The Notorious Bettie Page
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| Starring | Gretchen Mol, Chris Bauer, Jared Harris, Sarah Paulson, | |
| Directed by | Mary Harron | |
| Studio | Hbo Home Video | |
| Runtime | 90 minutes | |
| Country | USA | |
| language | English | |
| IMDB Info | 0404802 on IMDb | |
| Buy it from | Amazon.com on DVD | |
The Notorious Bettie Page is a biographical film about pinup and bondage model Bettie Page, who is portrayed by Gretchen Mol. The film is directed by Mary Harron, who co-wrote with Guinevere Turner.
The film had its world premiere at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival on September 14, and was released in theaters in early April 2006. It was released on DVD in the U.S. on September 26, 2006.
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The cult pin-up idol Bettie Page gets the full-fledged biopic treatment in The Notorious Bettie Page, a movie that somehow seems as tame and innocent as the naughty photographs Bettie made in the 1950s. After a few scenes of Bettie growing up, the film quickly leads us to her more-or-less glory years, when she posed for countless peekaboo photos and some nudie films. These would make her an underground star for decades--long after she gave up modeling for religion, in fact. Gretchen Mol, a premature starlet in a redemptive role, does nicely at suggesting Bettie's too-trusting nature, maintaining her equipoise in a sleazy world. Her nude scenes are as liberated and no-sweat as those old nudist films always wanted people to believe. Director Mary Harron plays most of the film in the black-and-white that Bettie thrived in, which seems fitting enough (although the Kodachrome-bright color interludes are welcome). There's an air of "Ed Wood" about the project, and Harron maintains a similarly jovial tone, but the film does have a tendency to fall into the and-then-this-happened metronome rhythm of film biography. Even a promising venture into the Senate hearings on pornography is a minor joke. Jared Harris and Lili Taylor, veterans of Harron's "I Shot Andy Warhol," play colorful characters out of the grindhouse world, but few supporting players get a chance to make an impression. The main draw is Mol's commitment to the role and the film's goofy re-creation of a most peculiar subculture at an unlikely time. --Robert Horton
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Bettie Page was a icon of the repressed 1950s, when she represented the sexual freedom that was still a decade away, but high in the hopes and dreams of many teenagers and young adults. Gretchen Mol does a superb job of portraying the scandalous Bettie, who was a small town girl with acting ambitions and a great body. Her acting career went nowhere, but her body brought her to the peak of fame in an admittedly fringe field. Photogrsphed in black and white with color interludes when she gets out of the world of exploitation in New York, this made-for-TV (HBO) film has good production values and a very believable supporting cast. The problem is, it's emotionally rather flat. It's difficult to form an attachment to the character, since Bettie is portrayed as someone quite shallow and naive given the business she was in. The self-serving government investigations are given a lot of screen time, which slows down the film towards the end. But it's definitely worth watching for the history of the time, and to see the heavy-handed government repression that was a characteristic of the fifties.
- Screenies from 'The Notorius Bettie Page'
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See also
- Irving Klaw
- Rick Klaw interview with Irving Klaws grandson
- Bettie Page: Dark Angel (2004)
External links
- Official Notorious Bettie Page site
- In-depth piece on The Notorious Bettie Page at Alternate Takes
- David Strathairn Online: The Notorious Bettie Page - information and media on the film
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