The Notorious Bettie Page (DVD, 2006)

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.