Published at: April 20, 2006, 12:29 p.m. CST by staff
Hey, all you mugs in trench coats. Capone in Chicago here.
Sex sex sex. Now
that I have your attention (I love that old trick), here are my thoughts on
a film that is soon to be a favorite among strokers (and discriminating film
goers) all over the planet, The Notorious Bettie Page.
Much like its real-life subject, The Notorious Bettie Page only wants us to
remember the legendary '50s pin-up girl in her prime: the innocent smile
that lights up every photo, the severe bangs of jet-black hair, the
alabaster skin, and dangerous curves that seemed to make every stitch of
clothing defy gravity. The film ignores as many pieces of Page1s very
filmable biography as it includes. Her supposed time spent in a mental
hospital after her pin-up years is not here; in fact, any trace of her life
past her 30s is non-existent. And I believe that¹s exactly how Ms. Page
wants it.
Director Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol) and co-writer Guinevere Turner
(the two co-wrote the adaptation of American Psycho with Harron directing)
scratches the surface of most of the major events in Page's early years but
still manages to pull together a compelling and surprisingly moving work
about a humble and sweet woman, constantly struggling to balance her two
greatest passions: her Christian faith and her need to please everyone,
including millions of American men who wanted to see her in various stages
of undress.
No one on the planet could play Bettie like Gretchen Mol, whose days of
virtual anonymity in small roles in even smaller films should be over right
about now. I'll even go so far as to say that Mol is more beautiful and
appealing than the real Bettie Page. She plays Bettie as the quintessential
charming, polite, Southern girl from Nashville. She also looks remarkably
fit and a tad sexy in the nude. Unfortunately Bettie¹s early years included
an abusive family, possessive husband, and gang sexual assault. Bettie moved
to New York to act (her scenes in acting class with a teacher played by
Austin Pendleton are painful), but her good looks and nice figure got her
more modeling jobs than stage work.
Bettie's progression from swimsuits and lingerie photos to nudity and
bondage movies is shrewd and seductive. The always-great Lili Taylor plays
Paula Klaw, who, with husband Irving (Chris Bauer), booked most of Bettie
most famous work and oversaw some of her more bizarre fetish clients. The
couple's relationship with Bettie is almost parental, and since the actress
in Bettie always sees these twisted photo shoots as just dress up and play
acting, she easily talks her way out of feeling guilty or dirty. Her process
of justification is fascinating. When one photographer asks her to go from
topless to fully nude for the first time, she shrugs and decides there's no
real difference.
Unfortunately, Page's powers of reasoning weren't equaled by our lawmakers,
as her bondage photos ended up being the centerpiece of a Senate
subcommittee investigation into (of all things) the causes of juvenile
delinquency, led by Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver (David Strathairn).
Most of the film is told in flashback as Page sits in the hallway outside
the hearing room waiting to be called in a below-the-knee skirt and white
gloves. Harron wisely chooses to make her film black and white, with a few
glimpses of color when Bettie vacations in Florida and poses for legendary
pin-up photographer Bunny Yeager (Sarah Paulson). The look, music, and
atmosphere The Notorious Bettie Page captures is both the ultra-hip and
slightly seedy side of Bettie and her associates. But it¹s the film's final
and simplest act that gets to the heart of the woman, as Bettie begins to
feel the strong pull of religion and finds it impossible to be both Madonna
and whore (in her mind and the mind of the church).
The fact that the film leaves you wanting to know more, I feel, is not a
sign that it's incomplete but that it's so well made. Bettie's life is such
a curiosity that a second movie could be made that picks up right where this
one leaves off. I'd be just as interested to know about a woman who no
longer takes her clothes off as I was to learn about one who did. Despite
the legion of colorful characters, Gretchen Mol walks away with this film on
her brassiere-strapped shoulders and wins our hearts in the process. If The
Notorious Bettie Page had been released late last year, Mol would have been
a lock for an Oscar nomination. Go to the film for the T&A, but stay for the
gripping study of a divided woman who managed both sinner and saint quite
nicely.