What does one of the most admired and glamorous Hollywood actresses of the golden era of Hollywood cinema have in common with the inventor that created the basis for wifi and bluetooth technology? Everything, because they were both Hedy lamarr. Alexandra Dean‘s portrait of the actress born in 1914 in Vienna as Hedwig Kielser who became a a style icon of the 30s and 40s after fleeing from Nazi Austria is also about Lamarr‘s generally unknown double life and is styled like a superhero story. Lamarr was a passionate researcher who preferred to work and experiment in her home lab after her film shoots. In World War II she developed the “frequency hopping“ principle together with composer George Antheil which the US Navy used as a foundation for developing today‘s ubiquitous technology found in cell phones and computers. Dean assembles archival material, film clips, interviews with contemporary witnesses, family members, and admirers as well as footage from a late interview with Lamarr and turns it into a dense and astute narrative about social constraints and gender stereotypes in the entertainment industry. Scandals, divorces, and the later failure of her own productions affected the external perception of a woman who was considered “difficult“ in the film world and whose actual talent was barely appreciated while she was alive. Even after her scientific work became known, Hedy Lamarr didn‘t get compensation from the profiteers of her idea and died with almost no money to her name in 2000. Dean portrays her as a complex person who was squeezed into a one dimensional image by a dream factory that doesn‘t allow for anything non-conformist.

Jens Mayer (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy