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Whoever said moral decadence, perversion, and cultural decline couldn’t be fun? There was a time – a serious, earnest time – when the women of Hollywood’s biopics were history’s greats: They were queens, empresses, Marie Curie. And now? Well, let’s just say England’s Bess has been joined by Tennessee’s Bettie. She’s a queen, yes, but of the pinups, a bondage icon and retro cheesecake, and now she’s the subject of Mary Harron’s delightful, witty, and touching new movie, “The Notorious Bettie Page.” Bettie Page? Oh yes, you know her. You’ve seen her face, and maybe much more. Half a century [...]

The Myth But Not The Pathos

April 14, 2006

The Notorious Bettie Page; published originally in The New York Sun