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The Notorious Bettie Page

The Notorious Bettie Page (2005)

tomatometer

56

Average Rating: 6/10
Reviews Counted: 132
Fresh: 74 | Rotten: 58

This biopic only skims the surface of Bettie Page's life, leaving her as a cipher, and additionally fails to place her iconic status in historical context.

56

Average Rating: 5.9/10
Critic Reviews: 41
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 18

This biopic only skims the surface of Bettie Page's life, leaving her as a cipher, and additionally fails to place her iconic status in historical context.

audience

46

liked it
Average Rating: 3.1/5
User Ratings: 49,143

My Rating

Movie Info

Celebrated and vilified in equal measure, the pinup goddess Bettie Page inspired a legion of followers -- and an indecency scandal -- by appearing in a series of nude, sado-masochistic, and/or revealing magazine spreads in the 1950s. An era later, writer/director Mary Harron casts a knowing eye upon the woman who indirectly gave birth to modern pornography in the biopic The Notorious Bettie Page. As a teen, Page (Gretchen Mol) is a smart, plucky girl with ambitions beyond her Tennessee roots.

R, 1 hr. 30 min.

Drama

Sep 26, 2006

$1.4M

Picturehouse

The Notorious Bettie Page Trailer & Photos

More Trailers and Videos (1)

Cast

Critic Reviews for The Notorious Bettie Page

All Critics (140) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (77) | Rotten (59) | DVD (15)

In Mary Harron's film biography of the nude and naughty pin-up girl, Notorious is synonymous with 'joyless.'

May 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel | Comment
Roger Moore
Orlando Sentinel
Top Critic IconTop Critic

With her blue-black hair, Mol looks so much like Page that this could be a documentary, and her swings between modesty and exhibitionism are amazingly fluid.

May 12, 2006 Full Review Source: New York Magazine | Comment
David Edelstein
New York Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

... the movie's worth a look simply for Mol's career-boosting performance.

May 6, 2006 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Comment
Steve Murray
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

We can't always be sure what's archival and what's simulated because sometimes the filmmakers are trying to fool us. But their preoccupation with the manufacture of images keeps this exercise in exposure and concealment interesting.

May 6, 2006 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Disappointingly skin-deep and almost shockingly wholesome.

May 6, 2006 Comment
Lou Lumenick
New York Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

But still, who was Bettie Page? The film offers not a clue.

May 5, 2006 Full Review Source: Detroit News | Comment
Tom Long
Detroit News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Intolerably mild

August 30, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion | Comment
Fernando F. Croce
CinePassion

Beautifully stylized but emotionally flat, "The Notorious Bettie Page" is a confined but enjoyable conception of Bettie Page's brief-but-influential career.

April 20, 2009 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com | Comment
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

a subtle, understated study of a complex individual.

June 19, 2007 Full Review Source: musicOMH.com | Comment
Anton Bitel
musicOMH.com

Director Mary Harron and her co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner seem seriously conflicted about the tone of their film.

March 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Lewis Beale
Film Journal International

It is a wondrously entertaining biopic that gives a dazzling insight into a time when the world was ready to embrace the notion of a sex goddess, innocently.

March 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | Comment
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile

Visualmente insosso (o jogo entre P&B e cor parece apenas querer chamar a atenção), o filme empalidece tematicamente diante de Kinsey e não retrata Page de maneira particularmente interessante, apesar da ótima performance de Mol.

December 30, 2006 Comment
Pablo Villaca
Cinema em Cena

Men can ogle and evaluate all they want. The film's Bettie is what they've made, but she eludes them.

December 21, 2006 Full Review Source: PopMatters | Comment
Cynthia Fuchs
PopMatters

The film was directed by Mary Harron from a screenplay she wrote with Guinevere Turner. In the past, these two did substantial work. Now they play, so that audiences may have the double pleasure of enjoying their porn while feeling superior to it.

November 11, 2006 Full Review Source: Nation | Comment
Stuart Klawans
Nation

The DVD edition includes a fascinating extra, "Presenting Bettie Page," an archival silent short of the actual Page doing a striptease, and commentary from writer-director Harron and her co-cripter Turner, thatis far more perceptive than their film is.

October 3, 2006 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | Comment
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com Source: EmanuelLevy.Com

Stars Gretchen Mol in a terrific comeback performance as Page, the God-fearing woman from Tennessee who left Nashville for New York, where her aspirations of becoming an actress were interrupted, you might say, by a whip and a ball gag.

September 29, 2006 Full Review Source: Bangor Daily News (Maine) | Comment
Christopher Smith
Bangor Daily News (Maine)

Refreshingly, Mol doesn't play Page as a dumb bunny but as someone who discovered that narrow middle ground between sweetness and sexiness.

September 29, 2006 Full Review Source: Kalamazoo Gazette | Comment
James Sanford
Kalamazoo Gazette
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Notorious Bettie Page

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The Notorious Bettie Page directed by American Psycho director, Mary Harron is an interesting, but imperfect attempt at capturing the life of the first pinup queen Bettie Page to the screen. I felt the film lacked something that has made other biopics so good. The film is good and has a lot of solid performances, but

August 12, 2011
TheDudeLebowski65
Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski

Super Reviewer

A biopic based on the life of burlesque queen and icon Bettie Page, The Notorious mirrors the lady in question by being rather appealing on a superficial level but containing little of any real substance. The script skips over the abuse and indignities of her early life in a way that almost seems dismissive,

May 9, 2007
garyX
xGary Xx

Super Reviewer

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