Images from The Notorious Bettie Page
Select thumbnail for full image gallery.
The Notorious Bettie Page (18)
- Consumer Advice: Contains sexual fetish theme
- Run time: 1 hour 31 mins
- Genre: Drama
- Release date: 4th August 2006
- Starring: Gretchen Mol, Chris Bauer, Jared Harris
- Directed by: Mary Harron
- Official Website: http://www.thenotoriousbettiepage.co.uk
- Distributor: Icon Film Distribution
Plot Synopsis
From Mary Harron (I SHOT ANDY WARHOL, AMERICAN PSYCHO) comes THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE, a provocative exploration of sexuality, religion and pop culture as she takes us into the 1950s and the fascinating world of famous pin-up girl, Bettie Page. In an incandescent performance, Gretchen Mol stars as Bettie Page, who grew up in a conservative religious family in Tennessee and became a photo model sensation in 1950s New York. Bettie's legendary fetish poses made her the target of a Senate investigation into pornography, and transformed her into an erotic icon who continues to enthrall fans to this day.
As it depicts Bettie's often accidental journey to celebrity, THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE captures a vanished but not entirely unfamiliar America, where sex is a secret obsession that can incite furor at the highest levels of government. In a stylistic tour-de-force, Harron recreates the look and feel of the films of Bettie's 1950s heyday, variously evoking the era's gritty black & white noirs, lush Technicolor melodramas, even its Super 8 home movies. We step into the past to follow the life and career of Bettie Page, a quiet, good-natured Southern beauty who found her calling in front of the camera and radiated vitality and joy in every pose, every costume, every milieu. Though her fetish tableaux may now look more quaint than shocking, Bettie Page remains a wonder to behold.
It is 1955, and Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver (David Strathairn), the Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency has opened hearings to investigate the impact of pornographic material on the nation's youth. Police officers have raided New York City's shady Times Square bookstores, where shelves are lined with men's magazines like Escapade and Wink, and specialty photos and booklets like "Bettie Page in Bondage" are kept behind the counter for customers with specific requests. A Catholic priest testifies before Senate committee that such materials are a greater menace to America than Communism.
In the hallway outside the hearing room, a lovely raven-haired woman (Gretchen Mol) quietly waits to be called before the committee. She wears a demure suit and proper white gloves; in a warm Southern accent, she gracefully deflects the subtle overtures of an intrigued young police officer, politely assuring him that she will be fine on her own.
She is the model from "Bettie Page in Bondage." And while her image in lace-up leather boots tells one story, the latest snapshot of Bettie and her sister Goldie, taken after church in Nashville, tells another. And both are stories of Bettie Page.