Superb look at the life of perhaps Hollywood's greatest startlet/inventor, Hedy Lamarr, whose private life was interesting enough (a stunning beauty, marriage to Austrian munitions manufacturer, early nude/orgasm scene in Ecstacy, fleeing to the US and MGM fame)... but then they throw in her inventing in her part time, quite successfully.
Lamarr is a fascinating character: warm, imperious, smart, funny, addicted to speed and plastic surgery, Jewish (but who would hide that even from her kids), an occasionally great and also terrible mother, bad taste in men, not great with money (she wound up with a pension despite her MGM salary and marrying an oil man).
The biography is very good helped by some great "gets" - a taped interview people did of her, home movie footage, grabs of the Austrian films. I did feel the filmmakers were a bit mean taking MGM to task for miscasting her - I felt Louis B Mayer used her very well. I mean, she was obviously brilliant and gorgeous but it doesn't mean she could act. She was made for stuff like White Cargo.
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