Well we all knew this wasn’t going to be a brilliant film so it really didn’t surprise anyone that it wasn’t brilliant; rife with strange and unnecessary black and white cinematography, unfinished and badly edited plot lines, and emotional vacancy. This was truly an airhead movie if I ever saw one. As the story of Bettie Page – uber-successful 1950’s pin-up model & one of the first sex icons in America – producers of The Notorious Bettie Page probably could have spent less time chewing bubblegum and blowing soap bubbles, and more time thinking about the strange legacy of Bettie Page. Indeed, director, Mary Harron presented us with a watered-down-good-clean-fun version of a biography that was actually more provocative, complicated, and historically relevant than the film would have us believe. In fact, the Bettie Page played here by Gretchen Mol seemed downright dumb and ditzy; more vicitm than vamp, more idiot than individual. Nonetheless, The Notorious Bettie Page was a fun and sexy movie, nicely fetishizing all things ‘50’s and all things ‘hush hush’. Plus, there were waaay more shoes in this film than in Kinky Boots; shoes on screen = visual pleasure + drool.

2 hearts out of 5: