The Notorious Bettie Page
Encyclopedia
The Notorious Bettie Page is a 2005
American
biographical film
directed by Mary Harron
. The screenplay by Harron and Guinevere Turner
focuses on 1950s pinup
and bondage model
Bettie Page
.
is an ambitious, naïve, and devout young Christian
woman who longs to leave Nashville, Tennessee
following a childhood of sexual abuse
, a failed wartime marriage, and a gang rape. In 1949 she departs for New York City
, where she enrolls in an acting class. Amateur photographer Jerry Tibbs discovers her walking on the beach at Coney Island
and she agrees to model for him. He suggests she restyle her hair with the bangs that would become her trademark.
Bettie becomes a favorite of nature photographers (including Bunny Yeager
, who films her posing with two leopard
s), and she has no hesitation about removing her clothes for the photographers when asked. Before long images of the shapely brunette reach brother-and-sister entrepreneurs Paula and Irving Klaw
, who run a respectable business selling movie stills and memorabilia but also deal with fetish
photos, magazines, and 8- and 16-millimeter films for additional income. Their top model Maxie takes Bettie under her wing, and she soon finds herself wearing leather corsets and thigh-high boots while wielding whips and chains for photographer John Willie
, frequently at the request of Little John, a mild-mannered attorney with unusual tastes. Bettie is innocently unaware of the sexual nature of the images that rapidly are making her a star in the underground world of bondage
aficionados.
Bettie is called to testify before a 1955 hearing, headed by Senator Estes Kefauver
, investigating the effects of pornography
on American youth. Though she waits patiently for 12 hours to answer the committee's questions, Kefauver (for reasons unknown) decides to not bring her before the committee and dismisses her without an explanation.
When it becomes apparent that casting directors are more interested in her notoriety than in any acting talent she might possess, Bettie heads to Miami Beach. Drifting along with limited career prospects and a virtually nonexistent social life, she stumbles upon a small church, walks inside and embraces Jesus Christ during a religious service. Although she insists she's not ashamed of anything she has done in her life, she appears happy to leave her past behind and return to her spiritual roots by preaching the word of the Lord on street corners.
Back in New York, Irving is stressed out and suffering from ill-health. He decides that he and his sister must burn their vast collection of erotic photos, and movie footage in order to avoid potential prosecution. Paula reluctantly complies with her brother's request, but secretly saves the negatives of many of Bettie's pictures and movies from the bonfire, therefore ensuring that Bettie's work will survive for future generations.
common in 1950s films.
Actress/screenwriter Guinevere Turner, who cowrote the film with Mary Harron, was originally slated to star as Bettie Page but the role was given to Gretchen Mol when producers had difficulty raising money.
The film premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival
and was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival
and the South by Southwest Film Festival before going into limited release in the US on April 14, 2006. Opening on twenty screens, it grossed $143,131 in its opening weekend. It eventually earned $1,415,082 in the US and $362,924 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $1,778,006.
The film was released on DVD in the US on September 26, 2006.
Manohla Dargis of the New York Times observed "Until now, Ms. Mol has been best known for her premature designation several years ago as Hollywood's newest It Girl
. The label seemed to plague her, and she all but faded from view despite promising turns in little-seen films. Maybe because she felt protected by her female director and female producers (six out of seven), or emboldened by the material, or maybe because she knows how beautiful her gently padded silhouette looks in the raw, Ms. Mol takes to this tricky role with the carefree expressivity you tend to see only in young children who have learned the joys of nudity, usually when their parents are throwing a dinner party. When she strips, Bettie soars".
Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
said "The tone of the movie is subdued and reflective. It does not defend pornography, but regards it (in its 1950s incarnation) with subdued nostalgia for a more innocent time. There is a kind of sadness in the movie as we reflect that most of these women and the men they inflamed are now dead; their lust is like an old forgotten song".
Mick LaSalle
of the San Francisco Chronicle
stated the film "floats on the charm and the labors of its lead actress, Gretchen Mol, who single-handedly makes the picture worth seeing. She takes a character that is next door to a cipher and infuses her with innocence and mischief, wit and feeling, despite limited help from the script. Perhaps through intuition or through some careful study of Page's pinups, Mol has discovered a human being to play, and in the process has found her best screen showcase to date". Of Harron and Turner he said "They tell Page's story in a curiously uninflected way, revealing little, if any, point of view, and imposing no meaning or particular importance on this woman's life. This approach is far from a recipe for high drama, but it has the integrity of accuracy. The audience is introduced to Bettie because the audience is perhaps interested in Bettie or her career or her era. But there's no pretending that her life was all that fascinating, or that her contribution to culture was significant, or that her story contains a lesson worth receiving... There's enough here for a good after-movie argument, and that's more than can be said for most pictures".
Peter Travers
of Rolling Stone
rated the film three out of four stars and commented "Any old sleaze could turn Bettie's life into a kinky S&M wallow, a cinematic stroke book. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that director Mary Harron, who co-wrote the scrappy script with Guinevere Turner, doesn't do the expected. She's too sly for that, too subversively funny... [She] needed just the right actress to play Bettie. And she lucked out big time. 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".
Todd McCarthy of Variety
called the film "a superficial look at the '50s sex icon [that] feels like it was researched via press clippings rather than attempting a fresh rethinking of its era and provocative subject". He added "Mary Harron's work here seems curiously uninvolved. There's no sense of any particular commitment to the leading character... [The] result is a strangely placid, unchallenging picture with no blood in its veins... Gretchen Mol is splendid to behold in every stage of dress or undress, but Harron and co-scenarist Guinevere Turner offer no clues as to what might be going on inside the dark-haired beauty's head and heart... Mol's Bettie is compliant, almost always open to any request and never disagreeable. But her lack of spine and inner turmoil make her a central figure of limited interest, that rare dramatic heroine with no ambition or goal".
but lost to Helen Mirren
in The Queen
.
2005 in film
- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2005...
American
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
biographical film
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
directed by Mary Harron
Mary Harron
Mary Harron is a Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter best known for her films I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page.-Overview:...
. The screenplay by Harron and Guinevere Turner
Guinevere Turner
Guinevere Turner is an American actress, writer and director. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She is best known as the screenwriter of such films as American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page and for playing the lead role of the dominatrix Tanya Cheex in Preaching to the Perverted.-...
focuses on 1950s pinup
Pin-up girl
A pin-up girl, also known as a pin-up model, is a model whose mass-produced pictures see wide appeal as popular culture. Pin-ups are intended for informal display, e.g. meant to be "pinned-up" on a wall...
and bondage model
Fetish model
A fetish model is a model who models fetish clothing or devices that augment his or her body in a fetish manner or in fetishistic situations, though he or she may not work exclusively in that form of modeling....
Bettie Page
Bettie Page
Bettie Mae Page was an American model who became famous in the 1950s for her fetish modeling and pin-up photos. She has often been called the "Queen of Pinups"...
.
Plot
Bettie PageBettie Page
Bettie Mae Page was an American model who became famous in the 1950s for her fetish modeling and pin-up photos. She has often been called the "Queen of Pinups"...
is an ambitious, naïve, and devout young Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
woman who longs to leave Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
following a childhood of sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
, a failed wartime marriage, and a gang rape. In 1949 she departs for New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where she enrolls in an acting class. Amateur photographer Jerry Tibbs discovers her walking on the beach at Coney Island
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....
and she agrees to model for him. He suggests she restyle her hair with the bangs that would become her trademark.
Bettie becomes a favorite of nature photographers (including Bunny Yeager
Bunny Yeager
Bunny Yeager is an American photographer and former pin-up model.Born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. Yeager became one of the most photographed models in Miami. After retiring from modeling, she began her career behind the camera. She met Bettie Page in 1954, and took most of her photographs...
, who films her posing with two leopard
Leopard
The leopard , Panthera pardus, is a member of the Felidae family and the smallest of the four "big cats" in the genus Panthera, the other three being the tiger, lion, and jaguar. The leopard was once distributed across eastern and southern Asia and Africa, from Siberia to South Africa, but its...
s), and she has no hesitation about removing her clothes for the photographers when asked. Before long images of the shapely brunette reach brother-and-sister entrepreneurs Paula and Irving Klaw
Irving Klaw
Irving Klaw was an American photographer and filmmaker.Klaw is best-known for operating a mail-order business selling photographs and film of attractive women from the 1940s to the 1960s...
, who run a respectable business selling movie stills and memorabilia but also deal with fetish
Sexual fetishism
Sexual fetishism, or erotic fetishism, is the sexual arousal a person receives from a physical object, or from a specific situation. The object or situation of interest is called the fetish, the person a fetishist who has a fetish for that object/situation. Sexual fetishism may be regarded, e.g...
photos, magazines, and 8- and 16-millimeter films for additional income. Their top model Maxie takes Bettie under her wing, and she soon finds herself wearing leather corsets and thigh-high boots while wielding whips and chains for photographer John Willie
John Willie
John Alexander Scott Coutts , better known as John Willie, was a pioneering fetish photographer, illustrator, and bondage artist.- Life and work :...
, frequently at the request of Little John, a mild-mannered attorney with unusual tastes. Bettie is innocently unaware of the sexual nature of the images that rapidly are making her a star in the underground world of bondage
Bondage (BDSM)
Bondage is the use of restraints for the sexual pleasure of the parties involved. It may be used in its own right, as in the case of rope bondage and breast bondage, or as part of sexual activity or BDSM activity.- Private bondage :...
aficionados.
Bettie is called to testify before a 1955 hearing, headed by Senator Estes Kefauver
Estes Kefauver
Carey Estes Kefauver July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S...
, investigating the effects of pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
on American youth. Though she waits patiently for 12 hours to answer the committee's questions, Kefauver (for reasons unknown) decides to not bring her before the committee and dismisses her without an explanation.
When it becomes apparent that casting directors are more interested in her notoriety than in any acting talent she might possess, Bettie heads to Miami Beach. Drifting along with limited career prospects and a virtually nonexistent social life, she stumbles upon a small church, walks inside and embraces Jesus Christ during a religious service. Although she insists she's not ashamed of anything she has done in her life, she appears happy to leave her past behind and return to her spiritual roots by preaching the word of the Lord on street corners.
Back in New York, Irving is stressed out and suffering from ill-health. He decides that he and his sister must burn their vast collection of erotic photos, and movie footage in order to avoid potential prosecution. Paula reluctantly complies with her brother's request, but secretly saves the negatives of many of Bettie's pictures and movies from the bonfire, therefore ensuring that Bettie's work will survive for future generations.
Production
In An Inside Look at the Pin-Up Queen of the Universe, a bonus feature on the DVD release of the film, producer Pamela Koffler and screenwriter/director Marry Harron discuss their decision to film most of the movie in black-and-white, which they felt not only perfectly captured the nostalgic mood of the period but also had a psychological impact on the audience. While writing the script, Harron knew she wanted to film the Miami scenes in color in order to provide a sharp contrast between Bettie's professional life and the escape she ultimately made from it. Cinematographer W. Mott Hupfel III used old color stock to approximate the cheerfully vivid hues of TechnicolorTechnicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
common in 1950s films.
Actress/screenwriter Guinevere Turner, who cowrote the film with Mary Harron, was originally slated to star as Bettie Page but the role was given to Gretchen Mol when producers had difficulty raising money.
The film premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
and was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...
and the South by Southwest Film Festival before going into limited release in the US on April 14, 2006. Opening on twenty screens, it grossed $143,131 in its opening weekend. It eventually earned $1,415,082 in the US and $362,924 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $1,778,006.
The film was released on DVD in the US on September 26, 2006.
Cast
- Gretchen MolGretchen MolGretchen Mol is an American actress and former model. She is known for her roles in films like Rounders, Celebrity, 3:10 to Yuma, The Thirteenth Floor,and The Notorious Bettie Page, where she played the title character...
......Bettie Page - Chris BauerChris BauerMark Christopher "Chris" Bauer is an American film and television actor.-Early life:Bauer was born in Los Angeles, California and attended high school at Miramonte High School in Orinda, California. He played on Miramonte Championship football team his senior year, 1984...
.......Irving Klaw - Lili TaylorLili TaylorLili Anne Taylor is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as Mystic Pizza, Say Anything..., Short Cuts and I Shot Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed TV show Six Feet Under....
.......Paula Klaw - Jared HarrisJared HarrisJared Francis Harris is a British character actor, well known for playing the obnoxious Mac McGrath in the Adam Sandler film Mr. Deeds, and for his portrayal of Lane Pryce on the AMC series Mad Men.- Personal life :...
..... John Willie - Cara SeymourCara SeymourCara Seymour is an English actress of stage and screen. She has appeared in many ensemble casts for acclaimed films such as American Psycho, Adaptation., Gangs of New York, Hotel Rwanda, and The Savages....
......Maxie Lee - Sarah PaulsonSarah Paulson-Career:She was a series regular on the cult television show American Gothic and the WB series Jack & Jill , playing the character "Elisa Cronkite"...
.....Bunny Yeager - David StrathairnDavid StrathairnDavid Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...
..Estes Kefauver - Austin PendletonAustin PendletonAustin Pendleton is an American film, television, and stage actor, a playwright, and a theatre director and instructor.-Life and career:...
..Acting Teacher - John CullumJohn CullumJohn Cullum is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in many stage musicals and dramas, including On the Twentieth Century and Shenandoah , winning the Tony Awards for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for each...
.......Nashville Preacher
Critical reception
The film reviewed at 56% fresh by Rotten TomatoesManohla Dargis of the New York Times observed "Until now, Ms. Mol has been best known for her premature designation several years ago as Hollywood's newest It Girl
It girl
"It girl" is a term for a young woman who possess the quality "It", absolute attraction.The early usage of the concept "it" in this meaning may be seen in a story by Rudyard Kipling: "It isn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just 'It'."...
. The label seemed to plague her, and she all but faded from view despite promising turns in little-seen films. Maybe because she felt protected by her female director and female producers (six out of seven), or emboldened by the material, or maybe because she knows how beautiful her gently padded silhouette looks in the raw, Ms. Mol takes to this tricky role with the carefree expressivity you tend to see only in young children who have learned the joys of nudity, usually when their parents are throwing a dinner party. When she strips, Bettie soars".
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
said "The tone of the movie is subdued and reflective. It does not defend pornography, but regards it (in its 1950s incarnation) with subdued nostalgia for a more innocent time. There is a kind of sadness in the movie as we reflect that most of these women and the men they inflamed are now dead; their lust is like an old forgotten song".
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...
of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
stated the film "floats on the charm and the labors of its lead actress, Gretchen Mol, who single-handedly makes the picture worth seeing. She takes a character that is next door to a cipher and infuses her with innocence and mischief, wit and feeling, despite limited help from the script. Perhaps through intuition or through some careful study of Page's pinups, Mol has discovered a human being to play, and in the process has found her best screen showcase to date". Of Harron and Turner he said "They tell Page's story in a curiously uninflected way, revealing little, if any, point of view, and imposing no meaning or particular importance on this woman's life. This approach is far from a recipe for high drama, but it has the integrity of accuracy. The audience is introduced to Bettie because the audience is perhaps interested in Bettie or her career or her era. But there's no pretending that her life was all that fascinating, or that her contribution to culture was significant, or that her story contains a lesson worth receiving... There's enough here for a good after-movie argument, and that's more than can be said for most pictures".
Peter Travers
Peter Travers
Peter Travers is an American film critic, who has written for, in turn, People and Rolling Stone. Travers also hosts a celebrity interview show called Popcorn on ABC News Now and ABCNews.com.-Career:...
of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
rated the film three out of four stars and commented "Any old sleaze could turn Bettie's life into a kinky S&M wallow, a cinematic stroke book. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that director Mary Harron, who co-wrote the scrappy script with Guinevere Turner, doesn't do the expected. She's too sly for that, too subversively funny... [She] needed just the right actress to play Bettie. And she lucked out big time. 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".
Todd McCarthy of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
called the film "a superficial look at the '50s sex icon [that] feels like it was researched via press clippings rather than attempting a fresh rethinking of its era and provocative subject". He added "Mary Harron's work here seems curiously uninvolved. There's no sense of any particular commitment to the leading character... [The] result is a strangely placid, unchallenging picture with no blood in its veins... Gretchen Mol is splendid to behold in every stage of dress or undress, but Harron and co-scenarist Guinevere Turner offer no clues as to what might be going on inside the dark-haired beauty's head and heart... Mol's Bettie is compliant, almost always open to any request and never disagreeable. But her lack of spine and inner turmoil make her a central figure of limited interest, that rare dramatic heroine with no ambition or goal".
Awards and nominations
Gretchen Mol was nominated for the Satellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture DramaSatellite Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
The Satellite Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama is one of the annual awards given by the International Press Academy.- Winners and nominees :The following listing is based on the web postings of the International Press Academy.- 1990s :...
but lost to Helen Mirren
Helen Mirren
Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...
in The Queen
The Queen (film)
The Queen is a 2006 British drama film directed by Stephen Frears, written by Peter Morgan, and starring Helen Mirren as the title role, HM Queen Elizabeth II...
.