The film opens with a few thoughts on Bettie Page from
people like Hugh Hefner (who talks about how much her image has influenced pop
culture) and Dita Von Teese (who says, “It’s
sort of confusing even whether she was a real person or not”). We then
briefly see her funeral at Westwood Village Memorial Park in December of 2008.
After those opening shots, the film is basically told in
chronological order. Through the interview, Bettie Page is really allowed to
tell her own story, and she does a great job of it, offering fantastic and
surprising anecdotes and information. Bettie speaks with candor about not only
her professional life, and not only about her triumphs and joys, but about her
troubles. About her father, she says: “A
sex fiend is the way to put it. I mean, sex with anything that he could get his
you-know-what into. Chickens and sheep and cows and anything.” He had sex
with Bettie’s two sisters, and Bettie talks about how she let him touch her in
order to get money to go to the movies. Her mother then took Bettie and the
other children and left him. But because there wasn’t enough money to care for
all six children, Bettie was put in an orphanage for a time.
As striking as that is, perhaps even more surprising is
that Bettie Page aimed to be valedictorian of her high school class in order to
get a scholarship and missed it only slightly, becoming salutatorian. Who would
have guessed? It was very early in this film that I was already completely
engaged.
Of course, a good deal of the film focuses on her
professional career, and interestingly it was a Brooklyn policeman who not only
got her started but suggested she wear bangs. The film presents plenty of early
photos of Bettie Page. She talks about the bondage photo shoots, saying that
most of that work came from requests from people. We are shown many of those
photos, and yes, we get a good amount of nude footage of Bettie as well.
After Bettie Page disappeared from the professional
world, the film goes into the influence she and her image had on artists and
models in the 1970s and 1980s. Meanwhile Bettie had a few marriages, which she
speaks about with humor. About the second marriage, she says: “Two months after the wedding I realized I
had made a mistake. All we had in common was movies, sex and hamburgers.”
Then when she got into religion, she was told she had to remarry her first
husband, which she did. That is really interesting, and what comes after that
is even more surprising.
Though Bettie is the narrator, there are several other
interviews throughout the film. Other people interviewed include Paula Klaw,
who along with Irving Klaw photographed and filmed Bettie Page; Bunny Yeager, a
pin-up model turned photographer; and Harry Lear, who married Bettie Page in
1967 after her modeling career had ended and who reveals some disturbing
episodes of her life.
By the way, I love that Bettie hated cigarettes. She
didn’t smoke, and you can see that the cigarette in that famous whip photo is
unlit.
Bonus Features
This DVD includes plenty of bonus material that should
please Bettie Page fans. The first is Filth
And Obscenity, and is nine minutes of footage including a couple of scenes
of those old “educational” films (I love this line: “We know that once a
person is perverted it is practically impossible for that person to adjust to
normal attitudes in regard to sex”). There is more on Movie Star News, and
more on Bettie Page’s influence on pop culture.
The bonus features also include The Early Years: Audio Interview With Bettie. Some of this
interview was used in the film, but here we actually hear the questions as well
as Bettie’s answers, which we rarely do in the film. Bettie talks about high
school, and all the activities she was involved in. There is a little more
about her time in the orphanage, and more on her start in modeling and the
camera clubs. She talks about how she once thought about joining a nudist
colony. Still photos accompany this interview, most of them being wonderful
early photos of her. This interview is approximately sixteen minutes.
Unreleased Bettie
And Paula Klaw Phone Call is the complete phone call, a small portion of
which is in the film. They talk about old times, working together, and also
about Bunny Yeager. This is approximately thirteen and a half minutes.
Perhaps most exciting is Irving Klaw’s Wiggle Movies, eight short films of Bettie Page (here
referred to as Betty Page) totaling approximately twenty-five minutes. They are
set to modern songs, most of them about Bettie Page, such as “Welcome To The
Jungle (The Fabulous Bettie Page),” “21st Century Bettie Page,” and “My Baby
Wants To Look Like Bettie Page.” The films include Dance Of Passion, Betty
Pages’s New High Heel Tease, Waltzing
In Satin Scanties, Dominant Betty
Dances With Her Whip (my personal favorite), Dream Dance By Betty, Betty’s
Enchanting Dance, Return Of Teaser
Girl, and Betty’s Exotic Dance In
High Heels.
There is also a music video of Buzz Campbell’s “Bettie
Page,” which features footage from the Irving Klaw films.
Bettie’s Funeral
is three minutes of footage from Bettie Page’s funeral, including an interview
with Hugh Hefner and bits of the speeches.
The bonus features also include a photo gallery of
seventy-one photos of Bettie that were not used in the film, as well as the
film’s trailer.
Bettie Page Reveals
All was directed by Mark Mori. It is scheduled to be released on DVD on
April 22, 2014 through Music Box Films.
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