Silver Screen Magic with Hedy Lamarr

Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian and American actress and inventor. After a brief early film career in Czechoslovakia, she fled from her first husband, Friedrich Mandl, and secretly moved to Paris.  Traveling to London, she met Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a film contract in Hollywood. Lamarr became a film star with her first performance in the romantic drama “Algiers.” In 1960 the actress was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The 1938 film “Algiers” is an American crime drama directed by John Cromwell. The screenplay was written by John Howard. The film starred Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie, and Hedy Lamarr. This is the remake of the French film “Pepe le Moki,” which derived its plot from the novel by the same name by Henri La Barthe. Boyer’s depiction of Pepe le Moko inspired the Warner Bros. animated character Pepe Le Pew.

This film was Lamarr’s Hollywood screen debut. The plot is about a French jewel thief Pepe le Moko (Charles Boyer) hiding in Algiers who meets a beautiful French tourist, Gaby (Hedy Lamarr).

The 1940 MGM film “Boom Town” is an American neo-Western film directed by Jack Conway. The film starred Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Claudette Colbert, and Hedy Lamarr.

Two buddies who rise from fly-by-night wildcatters to oil tycoons over a ten-year period, Big John Masters (Clark Gable) and Square John Sand (Spencer Tracy)

are in love with the same woman, Betsy Bartlett (Claudette Colbert).

The 1941 American romantic comedy “Come Live With Me” was directed by Clarence Brown. The film starred James Stewart, Hedy Lamarr, and Ian Hunter. The film is based on a story by Virginia Van Upp. The title is derived from the opening line of the poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (“Come live with me and be my love”).

The film is about a beautiful Viennese refugee, Johnny Jones (Hedy Lamar) seeking US citizenship, who arranges a marriage of convenience with a struggling writer, Bill Smith (James Stewart).

The 1940 American comedy spy film “Comrade X” was directed by King Vidor. It starred Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr along with Oskar Homolka, Felix Bressart, Sig Rumann, and Eve Arden.

An American reporter smuggling news out of Soviet Moscow is blackmailed into helping a beautiful Communist leave the country.

MGM’s 1945 American romantic comedy “Her Highness and the Bellboy” was directed by Richard Thorpe. It starred Hedy Lamarr, Robert Walker, June Allyson, and Rags Ragland.

The film is about a beautiful European princess, Princess Veronica (Hedy Lamarr) who travels to New York City to find the newspaper columnist she fell in love with six years earlier. At the Eaton Hotel she is mistaken for a maid by bellboy Jimmy Dobson (Robert Walker). The princess insists the bellboy become her personal assistant, unaware he has fallen in love with her.

The 1949 American epic romantic biblical drama “Samson and Delilah,” directed by Cecil B. DeMille, was released by Paramount Pictures. It starred Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr in the title roles along with George Sanders as the Saran, Angela Lansbury as Semadar, and Henry Wilcoxon as Prince Ahtur. This biblical drama is based on the Book of Judges, Chapters 13-16.

The storyline tells about Samson, a strongman whose secret lies in his uncut hair, and his love for Delilah, the woman who seduces him, discovers his secret, and betrays him to the Philistines.

The film won two Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. DeMille won the Film Français Grand Prix for best foreign film of 1951.

1942 The American romantic comedy “Tortilla Flat” was directed by Victor Fleming. It starred Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, John Garfield, and Frank Morgan. The film is based on the 1935 novel of the same name by John Steinbeck.

The storyline tells of Daniel Alvarez (John Garfield), who inherits two houses and moves into one of them with friends Pilon (Spencer Tracy) and the Pirate (Frank Morgan). Danny falls for a girl named Dolores Sweets Ramirez (Hedy Lamarr).

MGM 1941 film “Ziegfeld Girl” is an American musical drama directed by Robert Z. Leonard. It starred James Stewart, Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner, Tony Martin, Jackie Cooper, and Eve Arden. It features musical numbers by Busby Berkeley.

The storyline tells about Florenz Ziegfeld looking for new talent for his latest edition of his Broadway revue, the Ziegfeld Follies. Three women, Sandra Kolter (Hedy Lamarr), Susan Gallagher (Judy Garland), and Sheila Regan (Lana Turner), are among those selected to join the cast and become friends.