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'The Notorious Bettie Page' feels like a missed opportunity

Posing in a spangled bikini for a private, ahem, "camera club," Bettie Page (Gretchen Mol) hesitates when the shutterbug fellas (and one female) ask if she could, um, turn around and, um, show them her ... backside.

It's the slightest hesitation. Bettie swivels southward and grins over her shoulder at the clicking cameras. Both her innocence and love of attention are caught in that moment of "The Notorious Bettie Page," the cinematic excavation of the 1950s naughty-girl pinup princess.

Picturehouse 'The Notorious Bettie Page' C+ The verdict: A career-reviving performance for Gretchen Mol in a so-so biopic. Director: Mary Harron Starring: Gretchen Mol, Lili Taylor, David Strathairn, Jonathan M. Woodward, Cara Seymour Run time: 90 minutes Release date: April 14, 2006 Rating: R for nudity, sexual content and some language. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'The Notorious Bettie Page'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Whenever Mol is giggling, playing and posing in the new film from Mary Harron ("I Shot Andy Warhol," "American Psycho"), "Notorious" is a laughing-gas high. But the rest of the movie sometimes drags.

An accidental icon, Page grew up in a stern Nashville family, found love, marriage and divorce with a local boy, and, after a seemingly nice fellow pimped her out to a bunch of yahoos, fled to New York with showbiz dreams.

Instead, she fell into the '50s underground of men's mags with names like Titter, Whisper and Beauty Parade. Then, even deeper underground, into the apartment studio of the Klaw siblings, Irving (Chris Bauer) and Paula (Lili Taylor). Photographer of mail-order "specialty" pictures, Irving speaks as a connoisseur about his work, promising one customer "the most strenuous bondage photos ever made."

For Bettie — and this is the movie's main and sweetest joke — the leather boots, riding crops and ball gags are just funny costume items. When British photographer John Willie (Jared Harris) tells her to "look very strict" for a client with dominatrix fantasies, you see Bettie rising gleefully to the acting challenge.

The fun comes to an end with a government investigation into the effects of racy photos on the nation's youth, the subcommittee led by Sen. Estes Kefauver of her home state. In an amusing turn-around from his role as Joseph McCarthy's nemesis in "Good Night, and Good Luck," Kefauver is played by David Strathairn.

Unfortunately, the actor's presence invites comparisons between the two movies. The black-and-white cinematography (with a few explosions of color) in "Notorious" looks grainy compared with the crystalline look of "Good Night." Also, that 2005 film worked as a sly/serious commentary on our own era. A loving but rather empty valentine to the pinup, "Notorious" is never exactly a farce or satire or parable for modern times. Or much of a biography, either (it ignores the dark years of Page's life after she gave up modeling). It feels like a missed opportunity, harnessing Page's unique, fun-loving naughtiness, then uncertain what to do with it.

Even so, the movie's worth a look simply for Mol's career-boosting performance. She seems to understand Bettie Page better than the filmmakers do.

In one particularly telling scene, when Bettie auditions for a play, the producer escorts her into the lobby and hits on her, in age-old showbiz fashion. She declines.

The in-joke? After a tepid career following her premature debut as the next It Girl on a Vanity Fair cover in 1998, Mol is, in essence, submitting to that old casting-couch tradition. Only, she's baring it all not for some sleazy producer, but for everybody watching the movie.

"When she's nude," a photographer says of Bettie, "she doesn't seem naked." It's true of Mol, too, who exudes sheer exuberance while romping around starkers.

Her fearlessness pays off. She's very good, not great; she's captivating, not transcendent. But she earns a huge amount of good will. These many years later, she finally justifies the magazine cover that, like the tawdrier ones featuring Bettie Page, launched her into pop-culture history.