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Bombshell: The Story of Hedy Lamarr
In an attempt to try and watch the new Charlize Theron/Margot Robbie film, I discovered this heartbreaking 2017 documentary about one of the biggest movie sex symbols of the 1940's who wanted nothing to do with being a sex symbol.
I've watched a lot of documentaries on actors since joining this site, but this is the first one where I knew virtually nothing about the subject before watching the film. The only Hedy Lamarr films I have seen are Ziegfeld Girl and Samson and Delilah so I was ripe to learn a lot of things about this breathtaking movie icon.
What a lot of people didn't know about Lamarr, myself included, was that behind that one of a kind of face, was the mind of a rocket scientist. We learn that Hedy loved inventing and tinkering from the time she was a small child. We are shown an antique music box that, as a child, she once took completely apart and put back together again.
The film documents her fascination with improving forms of communication, including the formation of a communications formula, that would later become the genesis for Wi-Fi and, with her third husband, a torpedo that was actually submitted to the US military and when it was learned that a movie star was instrumental in its invention, she was told she would serve the country more effectively selling war bonds.
The documentary does cover her somewhat interesting film career, which actually began with an erotic foreign film from 1933 called Extase, which featured nudity and a scene in which she simulates an orgasm. We learn about her turbulent relationship with Louis B. Mayer, who spent a lot of time trying to control Hedy but to no avail. Most of all, we learn about a woman whose passion was science, but could not be taken seriously because she was so breathtakingly beautiful.
In addition to her children and grandchilden, commentary is provided along the way the way by Mel Brooks, Diane Kruger, Richard Rhodes, Peter Bogdanovich, and Robert Osborne. The film also features, as a very clever hook, Lamarr's voice on a series of cassette tapes, telling a lot of her tragic story. A heartbreaking look at a movie icon who had no interest in becoming a movie icon.
In an attempt to try and watch the new Charlize Theron/Margot Robbie film, I discovered this heartbreaking 2017 documentary about one of the biggest movie sex symbols of the 1940's who wanted nothing to do with being a sex symbol.
I've watched a lot of documentaries on actors since joining this site, but this is the first one where I knew virtually nothing about the subject before watching the film. The only Hedy Lamarr films I have seen are Ziegfeld Girl and Samson and Delilah so I was ripe to learn a lot of things about this breathtaking movie icon.
What a lot of people didn't know about Lamarr, myself included, was that behind that one of a kind of face, was the mind of a rocket scientist. We learn that Hedy loved inventing and tinkering from the time she was a small child. We are shown an antique music box that, as a child, she once took completely apart and put back together again.
The film documents her fascination with improving forms of communication, including the formation of a communications formula, that would later become the genesis for Wi-Fi and, with her third husband, a torpedo that was actually submitted to the US military and when it was learned that a movie star was instrumental in its invention, she was told she would serve the country more effectively selling war bonds.
The documentary does cover her somewhat interesting film career, which actually began with an erotic foreign film from 1933 called Extase, which featured nudity and a scene in which she simulates an orgasm. We learn about her turbulent relationship with Louis B. Mayer, who spent a lot of time trying to control Hedy but to no avail. Most of all, we learn about a woman whose passion was science, but could not be taken seriously because she was so breathtakingly beautiful.
In addition to her children and grandchilden, commentary is provided along the way the way by Mel Brooks, Diane Kruger, Richard Rhodes, Peter Bogdanovich, and Robert Osborne. The film also features, as a very clever hook, Lamarr's voice on a series of cassette tapes, telling a lot of her tragic story. A heartbreaking look at a movie icon who had no interest in becoming a movie icon.