Directed by Nico B, the man behind Cult Epics, who has been digging up for you the precious works of Abel Ferrara (Rxmas), Walerian Borowczyk (The Beast) and Tinto Brass (All Ladies Do It) among others, Bettie Page - Dark Angel acts like a complementary entry to the Bettie Page Collection set, mostly offering reenactments of Page's emblematic vignettes, with a light biographical thread in the background.
Sculptural beauty Paige Richards plays the pin-up icon and the movie starts with a Bunny Yeager photo shoot on a beach before unfolding with the highlights of Page's bondage years, which ended on a sour note, when the senate launched a puritan crusade against Page's notorious producer, Irving Klaw.
Made for video on a tiny budget, Dark Angel looks cheap and is filled with wooden acting — some would say it kinda looks like a porn flick without the "action" —, but it never pretends to be a masterpiece, rather trying to give a behind-the-scene look at Bettie Page's life and shoots. This is a piece which is mostly destined for Page's fans and knowing her influence on some certain sub-cultural circles, it might also become some kind of classic as a visual prop. This would certainly have fit well in the Bettie Page Collection, in place of the useless 100 Girls By Bunny Yeager.
Watching Bettie Page - Dark Angel, I started dreaming about what the result could be with a bigger budget, especially with Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct) at the helm and Angelina Jolie in the title role…
The main feature of the second disc of the limited edition, How To Pose Nude by Bunny Yeager, re-enacts the nude posing of Bettie Page, with Page Richards in the title role. If you watch the movie, you might notice that there is hardly any nudity, except for the closing credits, which is surprising coming from Cult Epics and knowing that Page did several well-known nude photo shoots, including the one in the Miami zoo. Well, here they are, in all their glory, from Miami Beach to the Miami zoo, giving you the opportunity to study Richard's body closely in various poses. Of course, the fact that we're following Bunny Yeager with the actress playing Page in the movie gives it some kind of amusing post-modern feel — at least that's the kind of pretext an intellectual would use to justify buying this new edition loaded with nudity!
Other extras include an interview with Richards, which mostly consists of the actress and Yeager congratulating each other, as well as a segment called "A Date with Page Richards" where the actress talks about what she likes to do on dates and her type of men — if you live in LA you might get lucky as she likes the rough-on-the-edge kind of guys. There are also a couple of other insignificant photo galleries and footage.
