While posing for 'gentlemen's interest' publications, brunette bombshell Bettie Page (natural blonde Mol) hopes - rather than believes - that she is doing God’s will.

She feels that hers is to be tied up and pinned down, to spank and be spanked, in kinky boots and manacles, amen.

But in the 1950s when conservative America could find scandal in a hymn book, only Bettie is surprised when she is called before a Senate Committee on charges of indecency.

Bettie's journey from not-so-good ol' Nashville to New York is charted in this distinctive-looking but overly coy biopic from American Psycho director Harron.

After being 'discovered' on a beach, Bettie’s modelling career, er, takes off. Moving to the bad Big Apple, she finds more unusual work with sibling publishers Irving and Paula Klaw (Chris Bauer and Lili Taylor). As opportunistic sleaze-mongers go, they're okay.

That Bettie becomes the most popular cover girl in the country is largely thanks to model-turned-photographer Bunny Yeager (Deadwood's Paulson) who sends her pix to a new chaps' mag called Playboy.

All the while, she pursues her true love – acting. Yet her only filmed performances involve other girls and fetish gear. Perhaps God really is telling her something...

In a purely physical sense, Mol is perfect. Filling Bettie's swimsuit beautifully, she is a yummy mass of contradictions, simultaneously playing the wholesome, wide-eyed innocent and the cheeky, enthusiastic exhibitionist.

But was she really this naïve? For someone who was "almost the class valedictorian", she often comes across as a borderline nincompoop.

Harron and writer Guinevere Turner are also dismissive of the male characters. They are either abusive (father, husband), pervy or just plain dull.

And while Bettie flits confusingly between boyfriends in New York and Florida, she has no apparent qualms about 'living in sin' - despite her strong Christian values.

The problem is that much of Bettie's story is guesswork. She gave no interviews and made such a swift disappearance from the public eye that even the official Bettie Page website can offer only the vaguest details of her life.

It doesn't help that other facts - like the outcome of the Senate hearing - are left out. (Though David Strathairn's cameo as the committee's witch-hunting chair works nicely as the flipside of his Good Night, And Good Luck persona.)

But while the history is hard to swallow, the 50s-style monochrome/Technicolor mix looks a treat. And Gretchen Mol is simply delicious.

Elliott Noble