Closed Captioned; Soundtrack English
Director Mary Harron (I SHOT ANDY WARHOL) and writer Guinevere Turner (GO FISH, THE L WORD) deliver a loving, whimsical biopic of the century's greatest pinup queen. The film also offers a highly relevant commentary on the sexual mores of the 1950s, as well as stunning cinematography by W. Mott Hupfel III that perfectly captures the age. Played by the lovely Gretchen Mol (THE SHAPE OF THINGS) in a career-making performance, Bettie Page is portrayed as a sweet but strangely wise naïf from Tennessee, buffeted by circumstances outside her control but buoyed by an innate, cheerful optimism. After an abusive marriage and a brutal gang rape, Bettie flees to New York and begins a modeling career, for which she has a natural talent and which she does with an uncommon joy and palpable enthusiasm. She also begins acting lessons, but what really changes her life are the bondage photographs she takes with Irving and Paula Klaw (Chris Bauer and Lili Taylor). Shot in the basement of the Klaws' celebrity photography business, Bettie's photographs were among the first harbingers of a society's awakening sexuality, and her ability to project boundless delight--no matter what activity she is engaged in--is truly remarkable to behold. Eschewing the sensational, the film instead unfolds at a leisurely pace, lacking much cohesive narrative and revealing the mundane realities of the life of a notoriously glamorous figure. The story is bookended by the trial the Klaws were subjected to for selling obscene materials, which led to Bettie's retirement to her much-loved Miami getaway and a rediscovered devotion to Jesus.
Theatrical Release: April 14, 2006
Notorious Bettie Page Reviews:
4 stars out of 5 -- "[Mol's] Bettie radiates warmth, joy and vivacity. Without any emotional showboating she gives the character heart..."
-- Neil Smith, Total Film
"[A] visually ravishing investigation of a life lived with an innate sense of decorum."
-- Linda Ruth Williams, Sight and Sound
3 stars out of 5 -- "Beautifully shot....Gretchen Mol as Bettie is simply luminescent..."-- Natalie Braine, Ultimate DVD
"[A] frisky and fascinating biopic....Gretchen Mol, as Bettie, gets that naughty/nice erotic charm to an astonishing degree." -- Grade: B+
-- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
"[E]xuberant....A work of gorgeous surfaces, shot in mostly silvery black-and-white film..."-- Manohla Dargis, New York Times
"Interestingly shot by Mott Hupfel in both color and black and white..."-- Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
"Gretchen Mol does a fine job physically embodying Page..."-- Claudia Puig, USA Today
"The period re-creation is delicious, and the elegant black-and-white photography cinematography, punctuated with a few color sequences done in the style of '50s Technicolor movies, adds to the sense of nostalgia."
-- Stacey Farber, Movieline's Hollywood Life
3 stars out of 4 -- "Gretchen Mol is hot stuff in every sense of the term. She delivers the first performance by an actress this year that deserves serious Oscar consideration."
-- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
6850 
This is one docudrama that will keep your attention...
Gretchen Mol is more beautiful than even Bettie
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