The Mary Harron (who has previously directed the great I Shot Andy Warhol) biopic The Notorious Bettie Page was pretty darn good. It wasn't perfect but the performance by Gretchen Mol made it a lot more successful that it probably would've been with anyone else. Through Mol's talented performance you get the feeling that Bettie didn't question why she modeled - she was innocent of the psychology (she was a diagnosed schizophrenic) behind her modeling and the direction it took and non-judgmental - she simply was motivated to do it and believed that it must be her God given talent. Maybe so - and when God told her to stop, she did without hesitation - or so the film depicts but life is really not so pretty and nicely formatted.

The film follows her through a short marriage out of high school to a G. I. and then moving to New York to pursue acting which then led to modeling to pay the bills. Of course it doesn't hurt that she was beautiful and had a naiveté that was almost unbelievable - but yet it was truthful, I think. The film tends to gloss over the more troubling aspects of Page's psychology as you would expect. The truth is seldom as peachy as our idealized concepts.

With no home in Florida, Bettie relocated to California at the invitation of her newly divorced and lonely brother, Jimmie. Foster reports that Bettie was not living with her brother by April of 1979, but instead in a trailer on property owned by an elderly married couple. One day, without warning, she approached the elderly woman and stabbed her. When the husband quickly came to his spouse's defense, she stabbed him as well. The elderly man was able to incapacitate Bettie with a blow to the head; luckily, the wounds inflicted on both husband and wife were non-fatal. Bettie was found mentally incompetent and committed without bail to the Patton State Hospital in Highland, California, but was released in under a year upon recommendation of her doctor. Summary from the book Real Bettie Page: The Truth About the Queen of Pinups

This film was very enjoyable like a pulp novel and Mol's deft performance and a small part by Lili Taylor (who is always great) make this something I don't feel wasted a second of my time. The shots were very stylized and ran the gamut from grainy 16mm to noirish black and white. It also had a great soundtrack with some classic (though less famous) Patsy Cline songs and other Jazz and popular song music from the era.

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