Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr story

There can hardly be any more extraordinary story from the Hollywood golden age than that of Hedy Lamarr; an assimilated Austrian Jew, a very beautiful star with a moderate acting talent but an untutored brilliance in science and engineering.. Her tragedy was that she was in the wrong business, precisely that business that promotes beauty over brains – the movie business. Alexandra Dean’s excellent and important documentary about her is very instructive – a parable of modern sexual politics and assumptions about science. Lamarr was an enigma: a great brain trapped in a silly, spurious image of glamour, while her real talent was allowed to wither. A sad but fascinating story. (modified from Peter Bradshaw review)

The film has won several awards since being shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, including a New York Times Critic’s Pick and five audience awards. J. Hoberman named it “one of the ten best films of 2017