It couldn't have been easy to be a porn star in the stiff 1950s, but "The Notorious Bettie Page" makes it seem as though it was.
Played by the underappreciated Gretchen Mol with vivacious relish, Page appears in the film to have been a woman stuck on permanent smile mode. She walked on sunshine and bathed in pixie dust. If she faced harassment or catcalls for her career choice, we won't find out from this movie.
"The Notorious Bettie Page" is a rickety but entertaining biopic that tells the life and times of America's mid-20th-century pinup queen without attempting to delve into her psyche and motivations. The film hails Page as a trailblazer of the porn industry, breaking boundaries with her joyful participation in bondage imagery. What could be a full-figured examination of a unique celebrity turns out to be as thin as the paper on which Page's photos were printed.
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The narrative is too careful and nowhere near daring enough to rock any boats. Even the nudity and bizarre S&M poses from Page's pictures and films come off as soft and inviting. Never does Page seem exploited, and the pornographers and customers are all happy, benevolent folk. Piecemeal dialogue is inserted to make Page question the religious implications of working in porn, but those are tossed aside with the swiftness of a flashing camera bulb.
The only truly dark shades come early on, when a shot hints that Page was sexually abused by her father. Later she marries and leaves her husband after he beats her, and still another sequence shows her being tricked by a seemingly innocuous stranger into a rape trap.
Yet, Page remains sunny and trusting. When she's hanging out on a beach, she meets a sketchy man claiming to be a police officer who coaxes her to let him take her picture. The audience holds its collective breath when he invites her into his studio.
Page takes to modeling as though she's found her true calling. She moves up the ranks, taking acting classes on the side, oblivious of her sexual appeal as she just has fun in front of the camera and counts her money. Her unashamed, wholesome naturalism keeps her pinups in high demand. Photographer Bunny Yeager (Sarah Paulson) puts it best: "When she's nude, she doesn't seem naked."
Page's fame grows to the point where she's recognized in public, much to the chagrin of her embarrassed boyfriend. Photographer Irving Klaw (Chris Bauer) and his sister, Paula Klaw (Lili Taylor), become not only employers but friends. Page is quick to come to the aid of the Klaws when they're forced to testify in 1955 Senate subcommittee hearings on pornography led by Sen. Estes Kefauver (David Strathairn). Later, Page leaves the industry with no explanation and comes to Jesus.
Director Mary Harron ("I Shot Andy Warhol," "American Psycho") makes seemingly arbitrary switches in the film stock from black and white to color, which jumbles the tone and proves more distracting than appealing. Harron should have stuck with black and white and filled in her story with more shades of gray.
review
The Notorious Bettie Page
**1/2
Rated: R for nudity, sexual content and some language
Cast: Gretchen Mol, David Strathairn, Chris Bauer, Jared Harris
Director: Mary Harron
Family call: There's a lot of nudity in the film.
Running time: 91 minutes
Opens Friday at: The Loft
