The Notorious Bettie Page ( DVD )

The Notorious Bettie Page ( VHS )

Dear Readers,

My little sister snuck out of the office one day last week and
caught a showing of a movie that has been out in theatres here in the
U.S. since mid-April. I don't know why she took so long to get
around to watching it, and I sure don't understand why she had to
ditch work and see it during the day. But she came back and filed
this review, which I am considering publishing -- after I spank her
for slacking off work!

I hope you enjoy it.

Sincerely,

Angie

Film Review: 'The Notorious Bettie Page'

By Sally Heart

Girly-mag queen Bettie Page confounded friends and admirers when she professed an undying devotion to the religion of her youth. But to
her, there was no contradiction between posing naked for the camera
and her sincere belief in the redemptive power of Jesus.

As Miss Page (expertly played by Gretchen Mol) tells a skeptical
observer near the end of the new movie "The Notorious Bettie Page,"
there is no moral failing in being nude. "Adam and Eve were naked in
the Garden of Eden," she explains. "It's when they sinned that they
put on clothes."

This isn't deranged self-rationalization or flippant hypocrisy on the
part of a morally corrupt young woman. Quite the contrary, as the
film takes pains to demonstrate, the pin-up icon maintained her
charming innocence throughout a life that was not without its rough
patches.

Focusing on the years during which she was an underground superstar,
the movie draws a sharp contrast between Bettie Page's almost
carefree attitude toward life and the ever-encroaching forces of
sexual McCarthyism. "Kitten with a whip" is a cliché, and yet it is
an apt description of the woman. Like a frisky baby cat, she went
through the motions of spanking (or being spanked by) her fellow
models on camera, but her smile often gave the game away. Miss Mol,
the one-time Hollywood "It Girl" who thoroughly inhabits the title
character, plays up this contradiction, almost winking at the
movie going audience the way Bettie used to wink at the purchasers of
her photographs.

In the opening act of "The Notorious Bettie Page," we are introduced
to the intolerant 1950s, during which she was at the height of her
popularity, and we go back in time to see young Bettie growing up in
a religious Tennessee family. But it was not a country idyll for the
girl. In fact, she and her sister had to spend a short period in an
orphanage after her parents' divorce. The film hints that she was
the victim of sexual abuse as a young adolescent; and a decade later,
we see the fully grown woman being naively lured into a gang rape.
In between, she had a brief and failed marriage that flamed out as
quickly (and perhaps as violently) as the young lust that had sparked
it.

Her experiences with these men clearly left Bettie feeling vile and
vaguely uncomfortable with herself. Watching the movie, we expect
she will lose her faith in men and perhaps even humankind, especially
after the gang assault that was aided by a Judas woman. But she
never loses her refreshing optimism and openness to new things.

Good thing, too. In the late 1940s, safe in the seedy arms of
post-war New York City, the 25-year-old was discovered on the beach
by a photographer who set her on her path to stardom, even giving her
the signature Bettie Page bangs. Not long after, she began appearing
in fancy lingerie in harmless men's magazines like Wink, Beauty
Parade and Titter. It certainly paid the bills while the young woman
pursued her real passion: acting.

It is in her acting class that she meets Marvin (Jonathan Woodward),
a fellow acting student who becomes her long time boyfriend -- and,
eventually, a scolding voice of society's disapproval as he first
reluctantly tolerates, then roundly condemns, her racy modelling.
Marvin is a good egg, patiently listening to Bettie as she ruefully
regrets having cut a high school class to attend a play rehearsal,
thus losing out on a distinguished college scholarship by the
slimmest of margins. But he never really "gets" the young woman he
professes to love.

Perhaps no man ever would. It is interesting that the two most
prominent photographers in Bettie Page's life were Paula Klaw, the
sister of famed pornographer Irving, and classy girly-photographer
Bunny Yeager. Both have an important role in "The Notorious Bettie
Page," but it is Miss Klaw (portrayed by Lily Taylor) who forms the
counterbalance to the always judgmental Marvin. Bettie is confused
by the ridiculously high heels she is asked to wear for a photo
shoot. "If that's what makes [men] happy, what's wrong with that?"
Paula replies.

Bettie Page simply came alive under Miss Klaw's camera. In an
earlier scene of the movie, she had cheerfully posed in various
states of undress -- including fully nude -- for a rather shy,
ham-handed boy photographer. The actress Miss Mol flashed a
brilliant smile to complement her lovely naked curves, but it was
when her character was being photographed by Paula Klaw that she
really seemed electrified. "Oh, she's so _happy!"_ Paula chirps at
Bettie's very first shoot.

One bondage scene led to another, and then the budding star was
introduced to famously twisted porno-auteur John Willie (played to
the hammy hilt by Jared Harris), who was similarly charmed by
Bettie's child-like sense of abandon during their photography
sessions. "What say we give this girl a role in 'Sally's
Punishment'?" he asked a table of his friends. Sounds great to me, I
wanted to say!

"Sally's Punishment," along with "The Initiation of the Sorority
Girl" and several other short films, allowed Bettie to cross over to
the exciting world of moving pictures. Through the eyes of a film
censor, we watch the actresses tie up, scold, humiliate and spank
each other. Of course it strikes modern audiences as thoroughly
harmless, but the conservatism of the era can't be forgotten.
(Particularly today, in an era when we seem to be witnessing a
two-decade-long conservative backlash against the loose morals of the1960s and 70s.)

Despite the fact that these movies were only a little racier than
typical bondage scenes in a cowboy western or "Tarzan and Jane"
installation, they marked the beginning of the end for Irving Klaw's
porn empire. Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, representing the
forces of repression, called for hearings to criticize what he
considered to be the rampant immorality of pornography. (Senator
Kefauver is portrayed by David Strathairn, who ironically was fresh
from his star turn as anti-McCarthyite Edward R. Murrow in "Good
Night and Good Luck.") Indeed, it is these senate hearings that the
Klaws -- and Bettie Page -- have been called to testify before
earlier in the movie, before we flash back to Bettie's youth.

When the moment comes for their testimony, it is anticlimactic.
Irving Klaw takes the fifth amendment, and it is not long after that
he decides to shelve his business. (As it becomes clear, neither
Klaw sibling was passionate attracted to bondage photos and movies --
they simply found it a lucrative niche of pornography.) Bettie
herself is not asked to testify, so the world never knows what the
young sensation would have said to account for herself.

Perhaps she might have answered an interrogating senator the way she responded to a line of questioning from Mr. Willie. During a photo
shoot in which they are alone together, Bettie expresses offence at
the man's salty language. Why, he asks? "I believe in Jesus," she
answers primly.

"What do you think Jesus would say about what you're doing now?" Mr.
Willie says.

"I think God would want us to use our talents to make people happy,"
she responds. Throughout the movie, Bettie Page's overwhelming
innocence comes through. Even by the end, when she experiences a
born-again moment in a tiny Florida church, she is not washing away
the moral corruption of pornography. Rather, she is embracing a new
life.

Shortly after the height of her fame, a 1955 Playboy magazine
centrefold in which she wore nothing but a Santa Claus cap, Bettie
moved away from New York and disappeared from the pages of magazines.

It was only a dedicated cult following that ensured that she was not
forgotten forever, as reprints of her vintage photographs began
appearing in magazines of the 1970s. She even became a comic book
character in "The Rocketeer" and "The Betty Pages." Today she is
something of a fashion icon for a certain type of young woman.

As "The Notorious Bettie Page" ends, the camera lingers on a set of
still photos being burned by a reluctant Paula Klaw, at her brother's
insistence. (She slyly saves some of the negatives, though, proving
that some women, while crafty, are infinitely wise.) We catch a
glimpse of one girl over another's knee, her pantied bottom being
thoroughly worked over with the back of a hairbrush. This classic
image will never go out of style, and even seemed more beautiful and
dignified as the flames lick and eventually transform it into a brown
mass.

We could say the same thing for the movie itself -- thoughtfully
executed by director Mary Harron ("I Shot Andy Warhol," "American
Psycho") and screenwriter Guin Turner ("Go Fish," "The L Word"), "The
Notorious Bettie Page" is a document whose shelf life may be
short-lived as it burns beneath the flames of the typical summer
blockbuster. But its subject matter will live on for generations to
come. Catch this movie in the theatres if you can, and you will be
able to tell your friends years from now that you were hip to it
before it became a cult classic.

( NOTE : This review came to in an email which was accidentally deleted , we do not have the author's details . )

AMAZON DETAILS

Theatrical Release Information

MPAA: for nudity, sexual content and some language.