Review of The Notorious Bettie Page (2006) by Bill B — 01 Aug 2009

For being called 'The Notorious Bettie Page', they really watered down the "notorious" part. As an audience, we merely get a glimpse into Bettie's life. Sure, we see her in photoshoots and in pages of magazines and ogled at by men. But we don't get to see who she REALLY was. One can argue and say that *as an audience* we saw how religious she was and that after living a safe life, she wanted to take a walk on the wild side. But, how did she FEEL about this? We don't know. We can simply judge by her facial expressions.

Then again, maybe one doesn't want to know the real Bettie Page. It WOULD take away from her "notorious" image.

All in all, it was a decent film that was a joy to watch because of Gretchen Mol's performance and the black and white shooting.