“Any girl can look glamorous; all she has to do is stand still and look stupid.” So declares Hollywood icon Hedy Lamarr, whose legendary beauty and affinity for scandal—denounced by the Pope at 18, six ex-husbands, drug addiction, financial ruin—blinded the world to the brilliant mind behind the invention of a secret WWII communications system that became the basis for modern WiFi and Bluetooth technologies.
Alexandra Dean’s debut feature is a revelatory and fabulously entertaining portrait of a remarkable woman who led multiple remarkable lives: the ravishing ingenue who scandalized Europe by simulating an orgasm on screen; the unhappy bride who fled from her fascist first husband with nothing but the jewels she had sewn into her coat; the thick-accented émigré who outmaneuvered Louis B. Mayer to land a lucrative Hollywood contract, and later defied the studio system to produce her own films; the brilliant inventor who advised Howard Hughes on airplane designs and patented a secret WWII torpedo navigation system; the American patriot who sold millions of dollars’ worth of war bonds; the destitute recluse arrested for shoplifting in a Florida drug store…