4 October 1937. Hedy Lamarr arrives in Hollywood. Read more.Hedy Lamarr had it all: beauty, brains, fame and fortune. For a few years she had the world, or at least Tinseltown, at her feet. And she blew it. So what went wrong? Was Hedy the victim of forces beyond her control or of her own character flaws. Or was she just plain unlucky?Hedy Lamarr arrives in Hollywood in October 1937. She has just fled Vienna, her husband Fritz Mandl, and the looming threat of a Nazi invasion. Taking the train to Paris and then crossing the Channel to England, she has discovered that Louis B Mayer, MGM’s head honcho, is in London and looking for talent. Somehow, she manages to arrange a meeting with him. He’s worried about the scandal surrounding her appearance in Ecstasy but not blind to her charms (how could he be?). So he offers Hedy a bulk-standard, six-month contract with MGM at $125 a week. Which she flatly rejects. She’s has her own idea of what she’s worth and she’s not going to be … [Read more...]
The Lady from Shanghai – the weirdest great movie ever made
The Lady from Shanghai – hallucinatory, baffling, sinister, brilliant, twisted. All of those adjectives apply to this flawed masterpiece by one of cinema’s great magicians. Or, in the words of Dave Kehr, the weirdest great movie ever made.The Lady from Shanghai has become something of a cult for movie buffs, particularly for connoisseurs of film noir. It’s full of originality, strangeness and atmosphere. But the film we see today is very different from the one that Orson Welles, its writer, director, producer and co-star, envisioned. And the story behind it has enough twists and turns to form the basis of a movie in its own right.If you’ve never seen the movie, now’s the time to find out what you’ve been missing. If you have a blu-ray player, try to get hold of the Mill Creek Entertainment transfer.Spoiler Alert!!! Let’s begin with the main characters and the plot of the film itself. So, stop reading now if you’ve never seen The Lady from Shanghai and want to watch it … [Read more...]
