"The Notorious Bettie Page" ** (out of four): Gretchen Mol shines in Mary Harron's startlingly inert biopic of the much-loved 50s pin-up queen.

If nothing else, “The Notorious Bettie Page” serves as an indication of how times change. The film, which concentrates on the short period in the mid-50s when Ms. Page became “pin-up queen of the universe”, spends the majority of its running time staging the photo shoots for which Ms. Page became famous. It’s telling that the same imagery of leather-clad vixens, which caused such a stir at the time, can now be reenacted in an R-rated movie with little fanfare. What used to be verboten now seems quaint. And unfortunately, there isn’t much at all that’s scandalous in Mary Harron’s startingly inert biopic.

Read More on BigPictureBigSound...