Gaffes

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.

When Bettie first meets future husband Billy in the park, she makes the statement that she'd seen Billy play football against Hume-Fogg high school. In reality, she and Billy both attended Hume-Fogg in Nashville, TN.

In the famous 'Jungle Bettie' pics, Bettie posed with cheetahs. In the movie they are jaguars.

In one 'bondage shoot' scene, Jared Harris shoots the bound Betty with a Leica camera, lens retracted. Collapsible lenses on Leicas need to be extended to shooting position for proper focusing. Shooting with a lens retracted will result in blurred pictures, and all photographers who shot with Leicas should know that.

In the scene mentioned above (with the improperly used Stereo-Realist), many photographers are seen using simple 1940s-50s box cameras indoors. No large window or strong artificial lighting seen. Yet, the photographers were shown shooting with ease, as if they were shooting outdoors in bright light. In the 1950s, box cameras and the less sensitive films can only be used satisfactorily outdoors in good light.

Approx. 11 minutes into the film, shows an original footage of a high view of a street. Pedestrians near the top of the view start to cross the road, suddenly they disappear.

At Bettie's first Klaw photo shoot (in the early 1950s), the record Paula plays for Bettie to dance to is Esquivel's "Mucha Muchacha," recorded in 1961.

A 1956 Pontiac convertible is seen in the pre-March 1955 beach scene where Bettie meets the young man in yellow.

The opening scene is an establishing shot of Broadway, labeled "1955". However, a movie theater marquee can be seen advertising 1948's BF's Daughter and none of the cars is of a more recent model than late '40s.

In an early scene, a parked 1947 De Soto sedan is seen wearing modern narrow-whitewall tires which were not available until the early 1960s.

On Bettie's trip to NYC we see historically accurate Greyhound buses, most likely the 'Silverside' model built in 1948. The problem is the scene when her bus enters the terminal in New York. The bus is distinctly a General Motors GMC PD 4106 model, which didn't enter service until 1964.

During the trial testimony of the bondage victim's father, in the scene immediately before Bettie Page is dismissed from testifying, audio and visual are unsynchronized.

Towards the beginning of the movie, where Bettie Page is talking to a security guard while waiting in the lobby of the courthouse, a boom mic can be seen.