The Notorious Bettie Page

Directed by: Mary Harron 

Starring:  Gretchen Mol,

Chris Bauer,

Jared Harris,

Sarah Paulson,

Cara Seymore 

Released: 2006 

HBO Films 

Length: 90 minutes

“The Notorious Bettie Page” begins with a publicity-seeking smut hunt conducted by Senator Estes Kefauver (David Strathairn). As Bettie waits to testify before a Senate subcommittee, we get a backward glance at her life. Born in the early twenties, she had a strict, religious mother and a father who the film hints may have abused her.  

The film stars Gretchen Mol (“Boardwalk Empire”) as Bettie, and focuses primarily on the 1950's and Bettie's quick ascension in the modeling world. There are plenty of interesting facts about Bettie the film sets forth, including her discovery in 1950 by an African-American New York cop (Kevin Carroll) who dabbles in photography, as we learn that he's the one who suggests Bettie give herself the haircut, complete with the very distinctive bangs, that would become her trademark.

 

 

 

From there, Bettie has some success as a model, but earns additional money on the side doing suggestive photography for "private clubs," which ultimately leads to her first nude work. Bettie Page's allure is often attributed to the ultimate "girl next door" aspect of her pictures, which managed to almost always mix in a feeling of innocence, even when the photos were revealing. Mol does a wonderful job of portraying these differing aspects of Bettie; we see her as the one who initiates taking her top off in a photo for the first time, but instead of coming off as a suggestive comment, she seems like someone who simply feels very natural when naked and doesn't see it as having directly sexual connotations. 

Bettie Page appeared in coy nudie-cutie magazines like ‘Bachelor’ and ‘Wink’ and in highly unconvincing lesbian bondage movies with titles like “Sally’s Punishment.” As the naughty girl next door, in black lace and stiletto heels, she domesticated fetishism. Bettie was quite a celebrity in her day and today she has become a cult icon.  

 

 

The look of “The Notorious Bettie Page” is great, with most of the picture shot in black and white to evoke the feeling of a 1950's era film. The black and white also allows for a lot of stock footage from the era to be inserted. There are also a handful of scenes shot in color, as Bettie makes several trips to Florida, where she meets photographer Bunny Yeager, who would take some of Bettie's most famous photos, including her Playboy pictorial. These sequences are in a vibrant Technicolor that also seems fitting and help accentuate how much Gretchen Mol resembles Bettie Page during the photo sequences.

 

Mol does a beautiful job of capturing Page’s unrelenting and anachronistic cheeriness. Today her photos look like nothing wilder than what you would see on the cover of a men’s magazine and the bondage sequences seem very tame, more like girl's playing around. Perhaps Page’s powerful erotic pull has to do with the sheer goody willingness that emanates from every photo she takes. “Even when she has no clothes on she doesn’t look naked,” says one photographer.  

Bettie Page has been a cult figure for years, the subject of quasi-scholarly books and grainy videos. Director Russ Meyer (“Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”) described her once as "the nicest girl you'd ever want to meet."   

For the readers of my blog, the most interesting aspect of “The Notorious Bettie Page” is that we get to meet Irving Klaw through the film’s portrayal of the legendary fetish photographer.
 

 

 

Klaw makes Bettie Page notorious because it was her fetish photos and her bondage films that separated her from the many other models that appeared nude in ‘Playboy’ and other men’s magazines. When her New York actor boyfriend, Marvin (Jonathan Woodward), registers his disgust at some photos of Bettie as a Dominatrix in a Fetish magazine, she can’t understand what he’s riled about. The pictures, she thought, were just for fun. No one actually got hurt—she and the other girls were just horsing around.

 

  

It is her innocence that makes Bettie Page such a fascinating character. The film examines her religious faith and how she reconciles that with her naughty profession. One gets the feeling watching this film that Bettie never viewed sex as being ‘dirty’ and she never viewed posing with whips while wearing leather boots and corsets as being ‘perverted’. She only began to feel guilty when other people judged her. Other people considered sex to be ‘dirty’, the naked female form to be ‘immoral’ and domination and submission to be ‘decadent’. Bettie had the faith of a child and she was able to see the world with innocence.  

All of that innocence disappeared when the government put the clamps on Irving Klaw and summoned Bettie to testify before the United States Senate during the juvenile delinquency hearings. Bettie begins to feel guilty and she seeks and finds redemption by embracing her roots, returning to church and giving her life over to Christ.   

The film doesn't defend Bettie or Klaw or the men that bought his photos, but rather it presents them as mundane laborers in the world of sex, finding a market and supplying it. Irving Klaw worked with his sister Paula. "Boots and shoes, shoes and boots," Paula muses to Bettie. "They can't get enough of them. Why? I guess it takes all kinds to make a world."
  

The tone of the movie is subdued and reflective. It does not defend pornography, but regards it with subdued nostalgia for a more innocent time. In the Senate hearings, a father testifies that his son died while attempting to tie himself up in a manner he saw in one of Klaw's bondage films.  The movie feels sympathy for the father. The movie also lets us see that Irving and Paula Klaw were not evil. In fact, they treated Bettie and the other models like family. The film presents their photo sessions as light hearted and fun. And their clients, such as pioneering fetish photographer and bondage artist John Willie, were so awed by the opportunity to photograph beautiful women like Bettie Page, that they treat the models as Goddesses.
 

 

Bettie abruptly disappeared into a life devoted to Jesus and was resolutely private about her life until her passing in December 2008. But she was never apologetic about her career choices. Harron respects this; “It was only after Adam and Eve sinned that they had to put clothes on,” is Page’s attitude at the end of the film when she is passing out church pamphlets in the park.  
 

And that in a nutshell was the fascinating life of Bettie Page. She did not know she was involved in what society and religion considered to be sin until society and religion placed their guilt and their sinful thoughts over on to her. People who campaign against ‘smut’ usually do so because of their own sinful thoughts. It is so much easier to point the finger at others and to place the blame on the ills of society than it is to come to terms with one's own sexuality.  
 

The government succeeded in closing down Irving Klaw. They won the battle but lost the war when it comes to fetish-oriented erotica. Klaw burned most of his photos but his sister saved about twenty percent and those pictures have been viewed by millions of people over the Internet.

 

 

And Bettie Page is more notorious than ever.

 

 

 

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars