Bound for Glory

AMERICA'S FAVORITE 1950S PINUP GAL

That was director Mary Harron working up a big sweat on I Shot Andy Warhol as she tried to make a feminist martyr out of real-life nut job Valerie Solanas, the Factory hanger-on who in 1968 did what the film's title says she did. So, you wonder, will Harron take a similar approach with The Notorious Bettie Page, her biopic of the 50s pinup queen who has of late been reborn as a style icon for postmodern strippers and girl art geeks? Will Bettie sacrifice herself on an altar of selfexpression and leather corsets, the Frida Kahlo of light bondage? Happily, no. Harron's Bettie, despite a few dark moments, is just a healthy gal who digs taking off her clothes and giggles her way through harmless entertainments such as Sally's Punishment and Negligee Fight. True, she struggles to reconcile her work with her Christianity, but, thank God, only a little. And that's about as deep as the film cares to go. Who knows: maybe there wasn't much deeper to get. (Bettie should have had a dead brother, as Johnny Cash and Ray Charles did.) All the more reason, then, to appreciate Gretchen Mol's continually mesmerizing performance in the title role. She captures the original's unself-conscious allure while adding a coltish, almost goofy sexuality all her own.

BRUCE HANDY