Review of Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2018) by Mahlon M — 18 Mar 2018

Brunette "Bombshell". What this documentary reveals about Hedy Lamarr is phenomenal. I've never seen any of her movies, but she was not only considered the most beautiful actress in Hollywood, she was incredibly intelligent--being the idea person for inventions since she didn't have the training for their implementation. She came up with the idea of frequency skipping which is used in encoding military communications as well as in our WiFi and garage door openers. The Navy never paid her for her patent or even used it until the 50s (male chauvinism being part or most of the problem). She studied fish and birds and came up with the idea for swept-wing aircraft for Howard Hughes. Who knew?

But her intelligence apparently didn't carry over into her personal life. She was married six times, her first being to a wife beater and Nazi weapons supplier (she was Jewish). And her discrimination is choosing rolls was problematic. She was first choice for "Casablanca" and "Gaslight", but turned them down, while starring in dubious movies like "Algiers" and "Samson and Delilah"--the latter starring Victor Mature, who I thought was awful, even when I was a kid. I almost never see documentary biographies in theaters, but this is an eye opener.