A Frustratingly Provocative Documentary, ‘Naked Ambition’ Focuses on ‘Bunny,’ a Woman Photographer Who Broke Into the Pin-Up Industry

“One of the great things about the passage of time is that it will take the veneer of filth off of nude material and turn it into art.” That’s the opinion of an American magazine editor, Dian Hanson, as espoused in “Naked Ambition,” a documentary by Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tabsch. Given the salacious periodicals with which Ms. Hanson has been associated — the titles of which won’t be mentioned here — her expertise favors prurience over aesthetics. No one should go mistaking her for Immanuel Kant.At the risk of engaging in unfortunate punning, time does tend to iron out the kinks of culture. Take the work of photographer Linnea Eleanor Yeager (1929-2014), better known to the world as “Bunny.” The nickname didn’t come, as one might suppose, from the mascot of Playboy magazine, a publication to which Yeager was an early and frequent contributor. The nom de plume was adopted from Robert Z. Leonard’s “Week-End at the Waldorf” (1945), a film in which Lana Turner starred as a stenographer named Bunny Smith.Platinum blondes of a feather will flock together, I guess, but Yeager’s renown is due primarily to a woman whose hair was raven black, Bettie Page (1923-2008). Should you not be a member of Page’s fervent fan base — please, let’s not call it a cult — “The Queen of the Pin-ups” is notable for bringing a fresh-faced innocence, a kind of sinless esprit, to her modeling gigs. She never “looked down her nose” at the audience. Did the select crowd who purchased magazines like Flirt, Bold, and Male Life intuit Page’s nonjudgmental ethos?Yeager and Page met each other in 1954 and spent the year working together, most notably at a Boca Raton amusement park at which the willing model dressed up in jungle gear and cavorted with a pair of disgruntled cheetahs. Hugh Hefner took note of the photos, hired Yeager as a regular contributor to the pages of Playboy, and made Page the focus of a Christmas-themed centerfold. The erstwhile model would later show up in FBI files as a consultant with a bead on “obscene” materials. She ultimately converted to Christianity.Bettie Page in ‘Naked Ambition.’ Via Music Box FilmsIt’s an interesting story with a lot of sad turns, as was the life of Yeager. Before she picked up a camera, Yeager worked as a model and won numerous beauty pageants in her adopted home of Florida, including Miss Trailercoach of Dade County. When Yeager took classes in using a large-format camera she wondered why a woman couldn’t be a player in the pin-up industry. Her subsequent entry into the field, as well as her success, came quickly.The novelty of a woman toiling in a realm catering to the as-yet-unnamed male gaze did not go unnoticed by mainstream organizations. Yeager went on to work for United Artists, Esquire, and that paragon of middle-class femininity, Redbook. Time and fashion do march on, and Yeager found that the market for “clean wholesome cheesecake” was being superseded by an industry increasingly geared toward graphic sexual content. Yeager struggled as ejection slips became the norm. A career as a nightclub singer floundered, the family finances took a dip, and her husband’s suicide shattered what had been a happy home.Or maybe not-so-happy. Yeager’s two daughters, Lisa and Cherilu, are of two minds on Bunny as both mother and artist. They’ve done their share of tussling over an estate that has gained in notoriety and, with it, commercial potential. Messrs. Scholl and Tabsch missed interviewing the 85-year-old Yeager by a matter of days, and their film suffers as a result: We never get a real sense of just what it was that made this woman tick. Yeager remains, if not a cipher, then more of a blank slate that the filmmakers might like to admit. “Naked Ambition,” in the end, proves a frustratingly provocative venture.

A Frustratingly Provocative Documentary, ‘Naked Ambition’ Focuses on ‘Bunny,’ a Woman Photographer Who Broke Into the Pin-Up Industry

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