Page was an infamous pinup girl in the 40s and 50s, specializing in outre garb and fetishes. The stuff she did seems kind of quaint and tame to us now, and her delight in it innocent and charming, but of course back then it was horrifyingly bad and evil and stuff.

This was an interesting movie, in that it did attempt to do justice to Page and really show her life and her personality. Gretchen Mol plays The Bettie, and very charmingly. Nevertheless, rather than naive, she really comes across as kind of stupid...I kept thinking, surely she's going to figure this out soon? but no.

And maybe she is just one of those happy souls who do what they do and don't worry about how it's perceived...but that's hard to imagine, especially back then.

Also, Page is still alive and well, so (like the makers of The Queen) the filmmakers had the onerous task of biographizing a living subject...there's not a whole lot you can do about this, folks, if your main character is alive but not involved in making the film, except drive slowly and carefully around the big red LAWSUIT signs...

So. Worth seeing for the filmmaking, the context, Mol's performance and for some of the historical detail. But we'll have to wait for Page's death (and she's doing fine, and I hope will be for a long time yet, she's only 84) to have the final tell-all.