The Notorious Bettie Page (2005)

The story of Bettie Page, uber-successful 1950's pin-up model, one of the first sex icons in America, and the target of a Senate investigation (based on her bondage photos).

Director:

Mary Harron

Writers:

Mary Harron, Guinevere Turner

Stars:

Gretchen Mol, Chris Bauer, Jared Harris

2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Gretchen Mol	...	Bettie Page
Chris Bauer	...	Irving Klaw
Jared Harris	...	John Willie
Sarah Paulson	...	Bunny Yeager
Cara Seymour	...	Maxie
David Strathairn	...	Estes Kefauver
Lili Taylor	...	Paula Klaw
John Cullum	...	Preacher in Nashville
Matt McGrath	...	Nervous Man
Austin Pendleton	...	Teacher
Norman Reedus	...	Billy Neal
Dallas Roberts	...	Scotty
Victor Slezak	...	Minister in Miami
Tara Subkoff	...	June
Kevin Carroll	...	Jerry Tibbs

Storyline

Portrait of an American innocent. In 1955, Bettie Page (1923-2008 ) waits to testify before a Senate subcommittee investigating the effects of pornographic material on American adolescents and juveniles. In flashbacks, we see her childhood in Tennessee, a brief marriage, a gang rape, and her going to New York City in 1949. There she takes acting lessons, models for photos, and acts in short films for adults, earning the nickname, "The Pin-Up Queen of the Universe." We see her relationship with merchants Irving and Paula Klaw, photographers John Willie and Bunny Yeager, boyfriends, and the public. Through it all, she is wholesome, sporting, and forthright - Eve before the fall.

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Plot Keywords:

senate | pin up | investigation | model | bondage | 

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Taglines:

The Pin-Up Sensation That Shocked The Nation.

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Genres:

Biography | Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for nudity, sexual content and some language

Details

Official Sites:

Picturehouse Films

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 April 2006 (Canada)

Also Known As:

The Ballad of Bettie Page

Filming Locations:

Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend:

$143,131 (USA) (14 April 2006)

Gross:

$1,410,778 (USA) (23 June 2006)

Company Credits

Production Co:

HBO Films, Killer Films, John Wells Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min 100 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The final scene, shot in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, is a re-shoot. It had originally been filmed in black and white, but it was decided that it looked too flat.

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Goofs

The film depicts Bettie as being OK with the fetish/costume/bondage modeling - and being quite naive as to the erotic uses of such photos. This is exactly opposite from how the real Bettie Page felt about modeling. Her attitude basically was that "God made us nude, so how bad could it be?" but the more extreme fetish posing fostered sexually deviant desires. The numerous fully nude shoots she did for amateur camera clubs bears this out.

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Quotes

Bettie Page: I'm not ashamed. Adam and Eve were naked in the Garden of Eden, weren't they? When they sinned, they put on clothes.

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Crazy Credits

craft service - Grover Cleveland, craft service assistant - Benjamin Harrison

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Connections

References The Scarlet Coat (1955)

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Soundtracks

"One Kiss Too Many"
Written by Eddy Arnold, Ed Nelson, Jr. and Steve Nelson
Performed by Eddy Arnold (as Eddie Arnold)
Courtesy of RCA Nashville
Under license from BMG Film & TV Music

User Reviews

not too surprising it's an HBO film, but a good one nonetheless, with a terrific lead in Moll

I had a vague idea of who Bettie Page was, partly due to her appearance in the very wee days of Playboy (apparently, when she got her photo taken of her and her Santa hat, just that, she didn't know what the mag was). The movie, co-written and directed by American Psycho's Mary Harron, fleshes out the key parts of her life well enough. A southern belle of a church goer has some bad experiences and leaves them behind to seek better times in New York City, where she gets into modeling, and from there a lot more. Soon, she becomes the underground pin-up sensation, with bondage the obvious (and "notorious" of the title) trait attributed to her. The actress Gretchen Moll portrays her, and gets down the spirit of this woman about as well as she could, which is really a lot of the success of the film. She's not a simplistic character, even if at times her ideas of morality are questionable ("well, Adam and Eve were naked, weren't they?" she comments a couple of times). Apparently, the filmmakers leave out the later years of Page's life and leave off with her in a kind of redemptive period, leaving behind the photo shoots for Jesus.

In all, the Notrious Bettie Page is not much more than a kind of usual bio-pic presented by HBO films, albeit this time with the stamina for a feature-film release. The best scenes that Harron captures are Page in her "questionable" positions, getting photos of her in over-the-top poses and starring in ridiculous films of whips and chains and leather uniforms. This adds a much needed comic relief to the film's otherwise usual nature. It's not that the story behind it is uninteresting, which involves the government's investigation into the 'smut' that came out of such photos and underground magazines. But there isn't much time given to explore more of what is merely hinted at, with Page and her complexities or her relationships or to sex and the fifties. It's all given a really neat black and white look and sometimes it seemed as if Harron was progressing some of the black and white photos to be tinted more as it went along. It's a watchable view if you're not too knowledgeable of Bette Page, and probably for fans too.