Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Just perfect...

Better Late Then Never

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Bettie Page, pin-up queen, was perhaps the most photographed woman of the 1950s, posing for professional and amateur photographers alike and appearing in men's magazines of all sorts from the mainstream to Playboy and bondage fetish books. The latter brought her to the attention of crusading Sen. Kefauver's committee on pornography, putting an end to her modeling career and her aspirations as an actress. The movie starts with her being called to testify and flashing back through her early years, where we see her as a free spirit who lived to pose for cameras. Despite a religious upbringing, she saw nothing wrong with what she was doing and was consequently puzzled by the strong reactions of those who did. Since this is the central issue of the movie a somewhat deeper probing of her character would seem necessary to reconcile the conflict, but we just don't get it. Despite being front and center in just about every shot in the movie, Bettie emerges simply as a sweet woman who was a little ahead of her time, and not much more.The movie has a nice period look, though, and creates an unusual portrait of professional pornographers as being something other than exploiters. Here they just like to play dress up in fetish costumes and take pictures. The implication, of course, is that the purchasers of such material, not the makers, are the perverts.

The Notorious BeP reeks of being another gussied up biopic with largely fabricated events or versions only included to justify making the film in the first place. In fact were it not for the nudity I can see little memorable or notorious about this film at all – the same might be said for Ms Page herself.In the 50s America was quite a repressed and puritanical place, and despite all the subsequent changes in attitude and understanding every current affairs show still seems to inform us that this is still the case today.Anything vaguely interesting is quite illegal, especially vaguely interesting sex related things.Everything from now should be read with the following lead off sentence: "According to the film…" … young Bettie Page had a repressed childhood.… a rushed marriage failed when her husband treated her with disdain, and often violence.… Bettie decided a fresh start was in order and moved to New York. She enrolled in acting classes but when success – and cashflow – wasn't immediately forthcoming a random request to model by a photographer lead her into the industry.… Page's innocence meant few inhibitions, and this carefree attitude to nudity – and a beaming smile – lead to more popularity both from readers and lensmen, which in turn created more offers from more varied sources.… these "varied sources" end up being fetishist stuff including bondage and high heels. Bettie (apparently) adopts the "what the hey" attitude and embraces these new fads, giving her all to photographers, even if she didn't understand what people saw in these bizarre new trends.…even though she didn't think she was doing anything horribly wrong, Bettie still didn't give full disclosure to her own family.…one day a non-industry person opens up and gives Bettie the real public opinion on her antics.… Bettie is confused. After all, she never meant to be Notorious.Look the film seemed to me to give a fairly favourable account of Bettie's life and supplied a bunch of alibis and excuses, more or less saying she didn't choose the industry, it chose her. Gretchen Mol is effective as portraying Bettie as somewhat innocent and likable – even if remaining oblivious to what everyone thought for years seems improbable – and yes Gents she does get naked a few times for brief periods.Given that she herself thought the whole thing was a bit of a laugh you could hardly call these scenes hot or erotic though.Similarly as the filmmaker (at least to me) seemed to think making this film warranted excising any sense of Bettie selecting her career path – there are hardly any "bad eggs" to be found in an industry that must have been quite seedy and underground even a lifetime ago – thereby claiming the "nice girl who didn't know any better" card, I can hardly call it compelling or interesting viewing, but a sanitized version of what actually might have a happened.Final Rating – 5 / 10. For a film begging for notoriety in its very title, and pertaining to the life of a nude and fetish model, this is tame… and flaccid, stuff indeed.

Sex sells… but they weren't ready for the kinkiness. Director Mary Harron (American Psycho, I Shot Andy Warhol) crafts out a respectably diverting, but moving bio-pic on legendary cult pin-up sensation Bettie Page. The narrative follows on through her southern childhood of a religious upbringing with a controlling mother to her quest of being an inspired actress (something and then it took off for her with the modelling jobs, especially her participation in outlawed bondage fetish photographs/and films that would cause a ruckus for their deviant nature and would become a target of a Senate investigation. She was a natural in what she did because she loved what she was doing, and became one of the world's first sex icons… and a timeless one too. What really makes this one work is the tremendously radiant and fetching Gretchen Mol who really does sincerely morph into Bettie Page's buxom shape and spirited persona. It's an admirably flawless and confident performance. Some of the forlorn encounters/or dilemmas facing her character could have tipped her over the edge or mentally damaged her, but she always seemed to find some sort strength to pull through it. The rest of the performances are truly fitting. Chris Bauer and Lili Taylor are outstanding as Irving and Paula Klaw who set-up and photographed Page's bondage pictures. An impulsive Jared Harris has fun with his part, and has some amusing scenes with Mol that really open up her character. Sarah Paulson, Cara Seymour and John Cullum are also good. Filmed mostly in black and white, Harron presents an ideal period flavour of the times (the 1950's --- sexual repression) and inserts some provocatively stylised filming techniques and a tuneful jazz score. Maybe not as outrageous as it could have been (well anyhow it would be tame by today's standards), but still its quite quirky and risqué in a tasteful sense with exposing flesh/nudity. Page rightly saw nothing wrong about what she did, just another expressive art form… but this did affect her ambitions of becoming a serious actress. The story does seem to loose its way in the last third, as it's dramatic structure becomes choppy and briskly concluded. It was an interesting look at the exploration of sexuality and the growing pop-culture that a society at the time couldn't understand or come to grips with.

Bettie Page is a young woman from Tennessee who drifts to New York City in the forties and starts to make a name for herself as a glamour model. When she starts to pose for bondage fetish pictures, it causes ructions in her relationships and she starts to question the value of her vocation in the eyes of her Christian faith.A lot of biopics tend to be about pompous figures from world history, but here's one about someone who was genuinely interesting and lovable. What's most intriguing about Page is that somehow she represents both the glamorous, sexy, fun-lovin' lure of America and the seedy, repressed, puritanical mentality that permeates its society. She's a Bad Girl who was in fact really a Good Girl, and her forthright take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards herself is refreshingly honest and commendable. Mol is fantastic in the lead; with her broad face and blonde curls she doesn't look anything like the real Page, but somehow when she gets the black fringe haircut and starts cheesecake posing for the guys in the house she suddenly blossoms into an amazing dead ringer for the real deal, carefully developing the character's aspirations and doubts. The support cast is good, with fine turns especially from Taylor and Paulson as snappers Paula Klaw and Bunnie Yeager. For whatever reason, Page is popular with women as well as men, and it's refreshing that this film was mostly made by women. Harron's direction is excellent, with nice pacing, mood, comic touches (the recreations of Page's stag loops are wonderful) and terrific juxtaposition of black-and-white New York with colourful Florida. Guinivere Turner's contribution as writer and co-producer is also tremendous. I've always been a huge fan of Page, purely because she was such a striking-looking woman - nobody looked like her or smiled like her. The movie charts her life mostly through her fifties heyday; she had some hard times after that, but her work had a renaissance in the eighties (notably through the character Betty in Dave Stevens' comic The Rocketeer and a fanzine by Greg Theakston) and this movie is a great celebration of her life. She died in 2008. Funded by HBO as a made-for-cable project, but also given a limited theatrical release.