The Madness of King George

Just a little reminder to those Royal watchers that long for the days of monarchy – we fought a war and had a revolution to get rid of this  genetically limited nutjob from the shallow end of the gene pool and have a land free and devoid of aristocracy. Oh we have quite a few people in Washington that seem to believe they are part of an aristocracy but I assure you and them… they’re not.

Anywho the movie…

The Madness of King George takes a dark-humored look at the mental decline of King George III of England. The film’s story begins nearly three decades into George’s reign, in 1788, as the unstable king (Nigel Hawthorne, reprising his stage role) begins to show signs of increasing dementia, from violent fits of foul language to bouts of forgetfulness. This weakness seems like the perfect chance to overthrow the unpopular George, whom many blamed for the loss of the American colonies, in favor of the Prince of Wales (Rupert Everett), but the king’s prime minister William Pitt (Julian Wadham) and his wife Queen Charlotte (Helen Mirren) are determined to protect the throne. Doctors are brought in, but the archaic treatments of the time prove of little value. In desperation, they turn to Dr. Willis (Ian Holm), a harsh, unconventional specialist whose unusual methods recall modern psychiatry. Willis struggles to break through to the mad king, treating him with an anger and haughtiness George has never before experienced. Stressing the absurdity of the entire situation, Bennett’s witty screenplay emphasizes dry humor over tragedy, even utilizing references to King Lear for comic effect.

The Notorious Bettie Page

Bettie Page is the poster girl for often imitated never duplicated so come with me now as we roll back the hands of time when a young mothers biggest fear was if her impressionable little boy found a dirty picture magazine…

When I was a pubescent boy in the very early 70′s I came across a old somewhat tattered girlie magazine from the 50′s that had several photos of Bettie Page, at the time I had no idea who Bettie Page was or what she would become. The pages (no pun) were old and discolored, the was cover missing and today the magazine is long gone – there was nothing very risque about the images by today’s standards and really not all that risque by the standards of the 1970′s but it was nothing my young eyes had seen before, but like many great moments in life it fades and is nearly – if not completely forgotten. Some years later Bettie Page’s image started to reappear and I was ‘Wow, I’ve seen this women before!’ who could forget those curves? Clearly she made a shapely impression upon my young malleable mind even though she was the age of my grandmother, but Bettie was cut from a very different cloth. Forever youthful on page and print – this women of the same generation as my grandmother was completely different!

So yesterday while the Barack Obama and the rest of the liberal loons were celebrating Vladamir Lenin’s birthday with their socialist cake – April 22nd was also the birthday of the notorious Bettie Page – pin up queen extraordinaire – the fresh faced girl next door type with a bit of a fetish naughty side and the incredible 36-23-36 figure. This bio film about here is over all is not the greatest in the world as movies go but it’s better than Nico B’s Bettie Page Dark Angle. So while the lefty hybrid enviro-wacko were out sharing one sheet of toilet paper (eeww) on Earth Day and the Obama socialist where dreaming of a land of conservative gulags and bread lines, elsewhere in the world some people remembered that the queen of pin ups would have been 88 years old. So Happy Birthday Bettie – have a  great photo shoot in the sky.

Now about the film…

Portrait of an American innocent. In 1955, Bettie Page (1923 – 2008 ) waits to testify before a Senate subcommittee investigating the effects of pornographic material on American adolescents and juveniles. In flashbacks, we see her childhood in Tennessee, a brief marriage, a gang rape, and her going to New York City in 1949. There she takes acting lessons, models for photos, and acts in short films for adults, earning the nickname, “The Pin-Up Queen of the Universe.” We see her relationship with merchants Irving and Paula Klaw, photographers John Willie and Bunny Yeager, boyfriends, and the public. Through it all, she is wholesome, sporting, and forthright – Eve before the fall.

Now if they would just finish the BETTIE PAGE REVEALS ALL movie – life would be good.