The Notorious Bettie Page

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Bettie Page



THIS is my review from when I saw the movie back in February, which I'll reprint for this thread...


The Notorious Bettie Page (Mary Harron, USA)

Bettie Page was the pin-up queen and underground sex goddess of the repressed 1950s, and she continues to be an enduring icon today. With her trademark bangs, warm smile, jet-black hair and beautiful curves, she's automatically identifiable even if you've never known her name. This biopic looks at her rise and fall, how a modest good girl from Nashville, TN became a timeless sex object. Gretchen Mol, who back in '98 and '99 was tapped as one of the "next big things" but never had a role or success to justify her dozens of appearances on magazine covers and "Enertainment Tonight", is really the perfect choice to bring Betty back to life. After years of rumors that anyone from Jennifer Connelly to Liv Tyler was going to star in the project, the lower-profile Mol (Rounders, The Shape of Things) excels in the role. Great supporting cast too, led by Lili Taylor, Chris Bauer, Jared Harris and Sarah Paulson and featuring a dozen character actors in small roles and cameos including David Strathairn, Austin Pendleton, John Cullum, Matt McGrath, Michael Gaston, Max Casella, Victor Slezak and Cara Seymour. But it is most definitely Gretchen Mol's movie.

The director and co-writer is Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho) and she made some interesting choices that really work. The movie is shot mostly in black & white with some color sequences sparsed throughout. In both cases, it is shot very much in keeping with the style and look of lower budgeted flicks from the '50s, and this goes so far as to include obvious stock footage, with camera movements, lighting and frame compositions that harken back to the old B-movies. This could have been distracting and gimmicky, but I thought it worked very organically and did indeed give the feel as if this movie was somehow made in 1956. Even when dealing with dark subjects like incest and rape, it's presented exactly the same way it would have been then, but without ever becoming a self-conscious Airplane!-style parody like Die, Mommie, Die! or The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra from recent years that have fun with their one-joke premises but become tiring for an entire feature. That old-time '50s asthetic doesn't hold true when it comes to nudity, and there are quite a few scenes of the lovely Miss Mol as the lovely Ms. Page without any clothes on. But the nudity is presented in the same innocent yet seductive style as the eternally famous photographs of Bettie Page, who went from modeling in her bathing suit to modeling partially and completely nude to posing in bondage and fetish pics and one-reel mail-order films. The Notorious Bettie Page is similar to Tim Burton's Ed Wood in many respects, including in tone and presenting the title subject as an eternal innocent. This may be a more simplified take on who Page was and how aware she was of her impact and what she was asked to do, but for the narrative, the style of the film, the character and the performance, it works.

For any Page enthusiasts, all of the major points of her career are detailed, from her days with the "camera clubs" around New York, her chance meeting with Jerry Tibbs on the beach that led to her hairstyle, her popularity in magazines, the years of working with Irving and Paula Klaw, her Florida sessions with Bunny Yeager and her appearance as a Playboy centerfold. I don't think some of the larger points the movie goes for about the hypocrisy of the repressed sexual culture are anywhere near as weighty and important as the filmmakers may have hoped, but it's a nicely understated biopic with interesting stylistic choices, a very good turn by Mol, and a breezy hundred minutes.

GRADE: B
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Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the film is mostly in black & white with a few scenes in color. That was interesting and I didn't mind it at all - obviously I forgot to put it in my review. It works because they show us footage from one of her sexy movies, which is in color, then cuts back to black and white so we know it's over. But also the sunny Miami Beach scenes were in color.



Originally Posted by Sexy Celebrity
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the film is mostly in black & white with a few scenes in color. But also the sunny Miami Beach scenes were in color.
It was done that way to show that some of the latter photos, especially the ones Bunny took that became postcards and such, were printed in color.






I am starting to wonder if I should add "Not Safe For Work" to the title of this thread. Holy stars.



I am Jack's sense of overused quote
Thanks for the review! I have been toying with seeing this for some time, and I think now is the time.
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Registered User
Good reviews. My sister sent me a copy just last week, and I might watch the movie over the weekend. I'll post my review too after.
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Celluloid Temptation Facilitator
As she was the "poster girl" for S/m and all that, I couldn't wait to see it.

I wanted to get to know the lead character much better. The movie really didn't give me much other than the religious background. Did they just not do their research or was there so little to the girl that there was nothing to tell?

I did love her attitude about how it wasn't wrong and why.
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I wanted to get to know the lead character much better. The movie really didn't give me much other than the religious background. Did they just not do their research or was there so little to the girl that there was nothing to tell?
Awhile back, I skimmed through a book about her and read some stuff online. Apparently, she won't let anyone in the media photograph her as she's old now and wants to be remembered as the sex goddess she used to be. She also still believes that all the S&M stuff she did then was innocent. Her hobbies include staying home and watching old movies. She also likes collecting pictures of herself and receives a new Bettie Page calendar every year.



Celluloid Temptation Facilitator
Awhile back, I skimmed through a book about her and read some stuff online. Apparently, she won't let anyone in the media photograph her as she's old now and wants to be remembered as the sex goddess she used to be. She also still believes that all the S&M stuff she did then was innocent. Her hobbies include staying home and watching old movies. She also likes collecting pictures of herself and receives a new Bettie Page calendar every year.
That's pretty cool IMO. If I had been known as a sex goddess I might feel the same way!

I think it was innocent for her! Of course I also see nothing wrong with S/m or nude shots at all, as long as it's between consenting adults.



From the Associated Press wire...

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Model Bettie Page hospitalized after heart attack


Bettie Page, one of the most notable models of the 20th century, is hospitalized in intensive care after suffering a heart attack in Los Angeles.

Mark Roesler, Page's agent and attorney, says Friday that the 85-year-old is "critically ill." He says she suffered a heart attack Tuesday and remains hospitalized.

He would not comment further on her condition.

Page is credited with helping set the stage for the sexual revolution of the rebellious 1960s. She attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and lingerie that were tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages and elsewhere.


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...flxowD94SSQA06

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Days after being hospitalized Page has died.

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1950s pinup model Bettie Page dies in LA at 85
By BOB THOMAS


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose controversial photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.

Page was placed on life support last week after suffering a heart attack in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, said her agent, Mark Roesler. He said he and Page's family agreed to remove life support. Before the heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia.

"She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality," Roesler said. "She is the embodiment of beauty."

Page, who was also known as Betty, attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages and elsewhere, where they remained for years.


This undated photo provided Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008 by CMG
Worldwide shows Bettie Page. Page, the 1950s secretary-
turned-model whose controversial photographs in skimpy
attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s
sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.
(AP Photo/CMG Worldwide)


Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.

"I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner told The Associated Press on Thursday. "She was a very dear person."

Page mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for decades, during which time she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.

After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken.

"I don't want to be photographed in my old age," she told an interviewer in 1998. "I feel the same way with old movie stars. ... It makes me sad. We want to remember them when they were young."

The 21st century indeed had people remembering her just as she was. She became the subject of songs, biographies, Web sites, comic books, movies and documentaries. A new generation of fans bought thousands of copies of her photos, and some feminists hailed her as a pioneer of women's liberation.

Gretchen Mol portrayed her in 2005's The Notorious Bettie Page and Paige Richards had the role in 2004's Bettie Page: Dark Angel. Page herself took part in the 1998 documentary Betty Page: Pinup Queen.

Hefner said he last saw Page when he held a screening of The Notorious Bettie Page at the Playboy Mansion. He said she objected to the fact that the film referred to her as "notorious," but "we explained to her that it referred to the troubled times she had and was a good way to sell a movie."

Page's career began one day in October 1950 when she took a respite from her job as a secretary in a New York office for a walk along the beach at Coney Island. An amateur photographer named Jerry Tibbs admired the 27-year-old's firm, curvy body and asked her to pose.

Looking back on the career that followed, she told Playboy in 1998: "I never thought it was shameful. I felt normal. It's just that it was much better than pounding a typewriter eight hours a day, which gets monotonous."

Nudity didn't bother her, she said, explaining: "God approves of nudity. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were naked as jaybirds."

In 1951, Page fell under the influence of a photographer and his sister who specialized in S&M. They cut her hair into the dark bangs that became her signature and posed her in spiked heels and little else. She was photographed with a whip in her hand, and in one session she was spread-eagled between two trees, her feet dangling.

"I thought my arms and legs would come out of their sockets," she said later.

Moralists denounced the photos as perversion, and Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, Page's home state, launched a congressional investigation.

Page quickly retreated from public view, later saying she was hounded by federal agents who waved her nude photos in her face. She also said she believed that, at age 34, her days as "the girl with the perfect figure" were nearly over.

She moved to Florida in 1957 and married a much younger man, as an early marriage to her high school sweetheart had ended in divorce.

Her second marriage also failed, as did a third, and she suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1959, she was lying on a sea wall in Key West when she saw a church with a white neon cross on top. She walked inside and became a born-again Christian.

After attending Bible school, she wanted to serve as a missionary but was turned down because she had been divorced. Instead, she worked full-time for evangelist Billy Graham's ministry.

A move to Southern California in 1979 brought more troubles. She was arrested after an altercation with her landlady, and doctors who examined her determined she had acute schizophrenia. She spent 20 months in a state mental hospital in San Bernardino. A fight with another landlord resulted in her arrest, but she was found not guilty because of insanity. She was placed under state supervision for eight years.

"She had a very turbulent life," Todd Mueller, a family friend and autograph seller, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "She had a temper to her."

Mueller said he first met Page after tracking her down in the 1990s and persuaded her to do an autograph signing event.

He said she was a hit and sold about 3,000 autographs, usually for $200 to $300 each. "Eleanor Roosevelt, we got $40 to $50. ... Bettie Page outsells them all," he told The AP last week.

Born April 22, 1923, in Nashville, Tenn., Page said she grew up in a family so poor "we were lucky to get an orange in our Christmas stockings." The family included three boys and three girls, and Page said her father molested all of the girls. After the Pages moved to Houston, her father decided to return to Tennessee and stole a police car for the trip. He was sent to prison, and for a time Betty lived in an orphanage.

In her teens she acted in high school plays, going on to study drama in New York and win a screen test from 20th Century Fox before her modeling career took off.

Associated Press writers Denise Petski and Raquel Maria Dillon contributed to this report.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...G9D5wD9517PE80
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