TCM Schedule for Thursday, October 21 -- TCM Prime Time Feature -- Hedy Lamarr

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Today's featured star is Hedley, er, Hedy Lamarr, and we've got five of her feature films, including the Czech film, Ecstasy (1933), that gave her a worldwide reputation with a sensational nude scene. Enjoy!


5:32am -- One Reel Wonders: Mr. Blabbermouth (1942)
BW-19 mins

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary

Included as a bonus feature in Warner Home Video's 2004 DVD release of Mrs. Miniver (1942).


6:00am -- Interrupted Melody (1955)
True story of Australian opera singer Marjorie Lawrence and her battle against polio.
Cast: Glenn Ford, Eleanor Parker, Roger Moore, Cecil Kellaway
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
C-106 mins, TV-PG

Won an Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay -- William Ludwig and Sonya Levien

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Eleanor Parker, and Best Costume Design, Color -- Helen Rose

Eleanor Parker can read music and has perfect pitch as a singer. She decided to study the scores of the opera songs used in this film on her own. She rented a cabin in Arrowhead California and played the records while singing along until she had the breathing and phrasing memorized. Then when filming the scenes, instead of lip-synching to the tracks recorded by Eileen Farrell for the movie, Ms. Parker sang full voice (but an octave lower). She is proud of the fact that they never had to do a re-take in order to "match" the tapes - she nailed it on the first take every time.


7:47am -- One Reel Wonders: La Gazza Ladra Overture (1954)
Johnny Green leads the MGM Symphony Orchestra in the title work.
Dir: Charles Vidor
C-9 mins

La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie) is by Gioachino Rossini.


8:00am -- Passage to Marseille (1944)
Devil's Island escapees join up with the Allies during World War II.
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michèle Morgan, Philip Dorn
Dir: Michael Curtiz
BW-109 mins, TV-PG

One of the few films to employ a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. This film is often seen as an attempt to recapture the magic of Casablanca (1942), to which many key players were also a part of. Some "usual suspects" include director Michael Curtiz, stars Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains, supporting and bit players Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Helmut Dantine and Corinna Mura, writer Casey Robinson, composer Max Steiner, producer Hal B. Wallis and executive producer Jack L. Warner (both films were made by the studio Warner Bros.). Also, Michèle Morgan was originally cast as Ilsa in Casablanca (1942), but her salary demand was too big, so Ingrid Bergman was cast instead.


10:00am -- Page Miss Glory (1935)
A con artist creates a composite photo to win a beauty contest, then has to find the real thing.
Cast: Marion Davies, Pat O'Brien, Dick Powell, Mary Astor
Dir: Mervyn LeRoy
BW-93 mins, TV-G

Marion Davies was William Randolph Hearst's mistress for over 30 years. It was widely considered the "worst kept secret in Hollywood" that she lived with him in California while his wife Millicent resided in New York. His wife would not grant him a divorce so that he could marry Marion. Marion retired from the screen in the late 1930s so she could be with Hearst as his health was declining. When Hearst lay dying in 1951 at the age of 88, Marion was given a sedative by his lawyer. When she awoke several hours later, she discovered that Hearst had died and that his associates had removed his body as well as all his belongings and any trace that he had lived there with her. His family had a big formal funeral for him in San Francisco. Marion did not attend.


11:45am -- I'll Wait For You (1941)
A wounded gangster's recuperation on a remote farm leads to love.
Cast: Robert Sterling, Marsha Hunt, Virginia Weidler, Paul Kelly
Dir: Robert B. Sinclair
BW-73 mins, TV-G

Marsha Hunt was a strong consideration for the role of Melanie in Gone with the Wind (1939), since the studio's first pick, Olivia de Havilland, was having trouble being loaned out by Warner Bros. In fact, David O. Selznick selected Marsha to play the role at one point but the following day the loanout worked itself out and Olivia was handed the part. Interestingly, both 93-year-old Hunt and 94-year-old de Havilland are still alive today!


1:00pm -- Moonfleet (1955)
A British buccaneer is torn between three seductive women.
Cast: Stewart Granger, George Sanders, Joan Greenwood, Viveca Lindfors
Dir: Fritz Lang
C-87 mins, TV-PG

This was the final film for Skelton Knaggs. This film was released almost two months after his death. Two of his most memorable roles: as the constantly grumbling villager Steinmuhl in Universal's "House of Dracula" (1945), and the mute Finn who "narrates" RKO's "The Ghost Ship" (1943).


2:30pm -- Bright Leaf (1950)
Two tobacco growers battle for control of the cigarette market.
Cast: Gary Cooper, Lauren Bacall, Patricia Neal, Jack Carson
Dir: Michael Curtiz
BW-111 mins, TV-PG

To add authenticity to the film, an authentic, turn of the century cigarette maker was purchased as a prop.


4:30pm -- Possessed (1947)
A married woman's passion for a former love drives her mad.
Cast: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks
Dir: Curtis Bernhardt
BW-108 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Joan Crawford

Bette Davis was originally offered the role of Louise, but turned it down to go on maternity leave.


6:30pm -- Conspirator (1949)
A newlywed suspects her husband of being a Communist spy.
Cast: Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Flemyng, Harold Warrender
Dir: Victor Saville
BW-87 mins, TV-PG

One of Elizabeth Taylor's first adult roles.


What's On Tonight: TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: HEDY LAMARR


8:00pm -- Algiers (1938)
A thief on the run from the law risks his life for love.
Cast: Sigrid Gurie, Charles Boyer, Hedy Lamarr, Joseph Calleia
Dir: John Cromwell
BW-98 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Charles Boyer, Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Gene Lockhart, Best Art Direction -- Alexander Toluboff, and Best Cinematography -- James Wong Howe

Animator Chuck Jones based the Warner Brothers cartoon character "Pepe le Pew" on the "Pepe le Moko" character played by Charles Boyer in this film.


9:42pm -- One Reel Wonders: Glimpses Of Morocco And Algiers (1951)
A visit to the city of Algiers in Algeria, and to the cities of Casablanca, Rabat, and Marrakesh in Morocco.
Narrator: James A. FitzPatrick
C-8 mins

An interesting aspect, especially in today's times, is all the talk about pirates and how the U.S. government use to pay them to leave us alone.


10:00pm -- Tortilla Flat (1942)
Inhabitants of a Southern California fishing village strive for the simple pleasures of life.
Cast: Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, John Garfield, Frank Morgan
Dir: Victor Fleming
BW-99 mins, TV-PG

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- Frank Morgan

Filmed on location in Monterey, California.


11:43pm -- One Reel Wonders: The Miracle Of Sound (1940)
A behind the scenes look at how sound is produced for films.
Cast: Jeanette MacDonald, Greer Garson, Nelson Eddy, Douglas Shearer
Dir: Douglas Shearer
BW-11 mins

Judy Garland sings It's A Great Day For The Irish, and Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy sing Dear Little Cafe.


12:00am -- White Cargo (1942)
A sultry native woman ignites the passions of workers on an African plantation.
Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Walter Pidgeon, Frank Morgan, Richard Carlson
Dir: Richard Thorpe
BW-89 mins, TV-PG

Because of the miscegenation aspects of the play (Tondelayo was a black woman), it was on the Production Code Administraiton's "condemned" list of sources not to be considered. A big outcry was heard when the British film, based on the same sources, was released in New York in March, 1930, because it was deemed to violate the spirit of the Hays decree. MGM hired playwright Leon Gordon to adapt his play for the screen; he changed Tondelayo's parentage to half Egyptian and half Arab, and it was eventually given an approved certificate. Still, the movie was placed on the Legion of Decency's condemned list, and the film was banned in Singapore and Trinidad because of its racial implications.


1:45am -- H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941)
A stuffy businessman livens things up by having a fling.
Cast: Hedy Lamarr, Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, Charles Coburn
Dir: King Vidor
BW-120 mins, TV-PG

Favorite film of Hedy Lamarr.


4:00am -- Ecstasy (1933)
A frustrated young wife escapes her passionless marriage through an affair with a young engineer.
Cast: Hedy Lamarr
Dir: Gustav Machaty
BW-87 mins, TV-MA

First non-pornographic movie with a (faked) sex-scene. The erotic close-ups of Hedy Lamarr's face in the throes of passion were aided, she says, by the director unexpectedly jabbing her in the derriere with a pin in order to get the desired expressions on her face.


5:30am -- Now Playing November (2010)

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1. Hedy Lamarr Profile

"Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid." -- Hedy Lamarr

Always glamorous and far from stupid, Hedy Lamarr is the only actress to date to turn stardom in an adult film into a major film career. Though rarely praised for her acting, she created an indelible allure that would make even the strongest Samson putty in her hands.

Hedwig Kiesler was destined for a simple, middle-class existence when she took matters into her own hands and dropped out of school to become an actress. She made her movie debut as "Young Girl at Night Club Table" in the 1930 German film Geld Auf der Strasse ("Money on the Street"). After two more small roles in German films, she made the picture that would make her an international sensation, even though many people couldn't see it, Ecstasy (1933). As a woman saddled in a loveless marriage whose passions are awakened by a young architect she not only appeared nude, but simulated orgasm. The film was a hot item among private collectors but banned in many countries.

What she might have done as an actress with her newfound notoriety is anybody's guess. Rather than capitalize on Ecstasy, however, she chose to retire from the screen to marry munitions manufacturer Fritz Mandl. Obsessed with his wife's beauty, Mandl tried to buy up all existing prints of her famous film, only to discover that fans like Benito Mussolini couldn't be bought off. Instead he made his wife a virtual prisoner in their home. Faced with his growing possessiveness and his Nazi sympathies (Kiesler was Jewish), his wife snuck out one night, taking her jewels and a few of his most valuable designs with her.

Determined to renew her acting career, Hedy arranged a meeting with Louis B. Mayer in London, but when his offer of $150 a week for only a six month contract wasn't enough, she arranged to sail to the U.S. on the same boat as he. By the time they had landed she had a seven year contract for $500 a week and a new name, Hedy Lamarr, taken from the woman Mayer considered the screen's most beautiful star, silent siren Barbara La Marr.

Once he got her to Hollywood, however, Mayer didn't know what to do with Lamarr. With no assignments at MGM, she approached independent producer Walter Wanger about a role in his re-make of the French classic Pepe Le Moko (1937). Starring opposite Charles Boyer, she made her U.S. film debut in Algiers (1938), an international hit that made her a star with her clothes on.

Mayer was still unsure of how to package Lamarr for MGM's more family oriented image. After casting her as a Polynesian temptress in Lady of the Tropics (1939), Mayer decided to personally supervise her next film. He even hired Joseph von Sternberg, who had made Marlene Dietrich a star, to helm the picture, I Take This Woman (1940). Then Mayer decided he didn't like von Sternberg's work so he fired him and ordered the script re-written. By the time he got the film back into production, he had a new director (the much faster W.S. Van Dyke) and even a new leading man. Lamarr's original co-star, William Powell, was no longer available, so they had to re-shoot his scenes with Spencer Tracy. By the time the film finally made it to theatres -- where it died a slow, painful death -- studio insiders had dubbed it "I Re-Take This Woman."

Determined to salvage her career, Lamarr fought for a supporting role opposite Tracy, Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in Boom Town (also 1940). Mayer didn't like the idea, but couldn't think of anything else, and she scored a hit in the comic action film. That should have set her on a course similar to Dietrich's after the German star scored a comeback as the saloon singer in Destry Rides Again (1939), but it didn't. Mayer kept coming up with ludicrous roles for Lamarr like the South Seas nymphomaniac in White Cargo (1942). But she also got some decent roles, earning her best notices as a beautiful businesswoman who lures Robert Young from his staid Boston ways in H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941).

Few actors at MGM suffered as much at the hands of studio management. For each good role like the Portuguese cannery worker in Tortilla Flat (1942), Lamarr had to suffer through misconceived roles like the violinist turned showgirl in Ziegfeld Girl (1941), in which co-stars Lana Turner and Judy Garland left her in the dust. Little wonder she made some major career blunders, turning down the leads in Casablanca (1942), Gaslight (1944) and Laura (1944). At least she got a chance to work with Casablanca co-stars Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre on loan to Warner Bros. for the World War II espionage thriller The Conspirators (1944), but critics were so unimpressed that the film quickly picked up the unfortunate nickname "The Constipators." A better choice was a loan to RKO for the Gaslight-like thriller Experiment Perilous (1944), which many historians often cite as her best performance.

At the same time, however, Lamarr was making a major contribution to the war effort. In addition to selling bonds and touring military camps, as other stars were doing, she joined forces with composer George Antheil to patent the technology she had liberated from her first husband. The result was a radio guiding system for torpedoes that used frequency hopping to make it harder to detect or jam transmissions. The system is still used today in cell phone technology.

When Mayer cast Lamarr opposite Robert Walker in the title roles in Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945) only to use the film to showcase girl-next-door June Allyson, Lamarr decided it was time to take off on her own. That left her free to respond to Cecil B. DeMille's call to star opposite Victor Mature as the biblical temptress in Samson and Delilah (1949), her biggest hit and the top box office film of its year. By this point, however, Lamarr was building a reputation for temperamental behavior. The film's costume designer, Edith Head, would later say she was one of the few stars she didn't like working with, while crews took to calling her "Headache" Lamarr behind her back. She wasn't happy working on Samson and Delilah either, and when DeMille offered her the role of the elephant girl in The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), she turned it down.

That decision practically ended her career. Although she was still beautiful and demonstrated a considerable comic flair opposite Bob Hope in My Favorite Spy (1951), Lamarr had a hard time finding other suitable roles. When she turned up as Joan of Arc in Irwin Allen's all-star disaster The Story of Mankind (1957), it almost seemed as if Mayer had come back to sabotage her career. In her last film, The Female Animal (1958), she played an aging star caught in a romantic rivalry with her daughter, former MGM star Jane Powell.

Lamarr's notoriety continued into retirement. Her 1965 autobiography, Ecstasy and Me, put her back into the limelight and brought her the chance to join other aging stars by switching to horror films. But when she was arrested for shoplifting, despite the fact that she was well off, she lost the leading role in Picture Mommy Dead (1966) to Martha Hyer.

In later years, Lamarr was always good for a quote (when given an award for her frequency scrambling device in 1992, all she could say was "It's about time!"), but she attracted more attention through her lawsuits. She decided the ghostwriters on her autobiography had made up salacious stories about her past and sued them. Then she sued Mel Brooks for naming Harvey Korman's character in Blazing Saddles (1974) "Hedley Lamarr." When the Corel Corporation used a sketch of her as cover art for their CorelDRAW software, she sued them for unauthorized use of her image. Even in death she made headlines, with her January 19, 2000 passing often called the first major star death of the 21st century.

by Frank Miller

* Titles in Bold Will Air on TCM on Thursday, October 21