Plot
Movie star Vanessa Windsor is nearly struck by a camera on the set, saved at the last second by Chris Farley, a handsome extra. A cut on his arm is attended to and Vanessa invites him to dinner at her Malibu beach home, where she clearly has designs on him for a night of romance.
Their evening is interrupted by a message that Vanessa's grown daughter, Penny, is sick. Vanessa rushes to her only to find her drunk. Penny then accuses her mother of adopting her simply for the publicity.
Vanessa decides to offer Chris a job as caretaker for the beach house. He is considering an offer from a friend, Hank Lopez, to shoot a film in Mexico, but the job pays nothing, so Chris accepts Vanessa's offer instead. In time, they become lovers as well.
Not knowing who she is, Chris comes upon Penny being physically manhandled by a date. Chris punches the man and takes a tipsy Penny back to the beach house. She doesn't indicate any recognition of the home as her mother's. Penny is so drunk that Chris places her under a shower, whereupon she kisses him.
Vanessa begins having Chris as her escort in public, but endures disapproving looks as well as snide remarks from Lily Frayne, another aging actress out with a younger man. Chris starts to resent being a kept man. Although Penny reveals her true identity to him, they end up having an affair. Chris decides to bail out of the threesome by agreeing to shoot the movie in Mexico, but Vanessa merely sees this as an opportunity for a publicity stunt marriage in Mexico. Chris again tries to end the relationship but still keeps Vanessa in the dark about the identity of her love rival.
When she's shooting a dangerous scene and while being "drunk again", Vanessa sees Chris and Penny standing together on the set and finally realises that they are having an affair. She takes a dangerous plunge into a water pool, a scene that was supposed to have been performed by her stunt woman. Chris rescues her again; in the final scene, she tells him "it wouldn't have worked anyway" and then sobs into her pillow.
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-born American actress and inventor. After a brief early film career in Czechoslovakia, including the controversial erotic romantic drama Ecstasy (1933), 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 performance in the romantic drama Algiers (1938). She achieved further success with the Western Boom Town (1940) and the drama White Cargo (1942). Lamarr's most successful film was the religious epic Samson and Delilah (1949). She also acted on television before the release of her final film in 1958. She was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Jane Powell was an American actress, singer, and dancer who appeared in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals in the 1940s and 50s. With her soprano voice and girl-next-door image, Powell appeared in films, television and on the stage, performing in the musicals A Date with Judy (1948), Royal Wedding (1951), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Hit the Deck (1955).
Ecstasy is a 1933 Czech erotic romantic drama film directed by Gustav Machatý and starring Hedy Lamarr, Aribert Mog, and Zvonimir Rogoz. Machatý won the award for Best Director for this film at the 1934 Venice Film Festival.
Algiers is a 1938 American drama film directed by John Cromwell and starring Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie, and Hedy Lamarr. Written by John Howard Lawson, the film is about a notorious French jewel thief hiding in the labyrinthine native quarter of Algiers known as the Casbah. Feeling imprisoned by his self-imposed exile, he is drawn out of hiding by a beautiful French tourist who reminds him of happier times in Paris. The Walter Wanger production was a remake of the successful 1937 French film Pépé le Moko, which derived its plot from the Henri La Barthe novel of the same name.
Comrade X is a 1940 American comedy spy film directed by King Vidor and starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr. The supporting cast features Oskar Homolka, Felix Bressart, Sig Rumann and Eve Arden. In February 2020, the film was shown at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival, as part of a retrospective dedicated to King Vidor's career.
George Garfield Nader, Jr. was an American actor and writer of Lebanese descent. He appeared in a variety of films from 1950 to 1974, including Sins of Jezebel (1953), Congo Crossing (1956), and The Female Animal (1958). During this period, he also did episodic television and starred in several series, including NBC's The Man and the Challenge (1959–60). In the 1960s he made several films in Germany, playing FBI agent Jerry Cotton. He is remembered for his first starring role, in the low-budget 3-D sci-fi film Robot Monster (1953), known as "one of the worst films ever made."
White Cargo is a 1942 American drama film starring Hedy Lamarr and Walter Pidgeon, and directed by Richard Thorpe. Released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it is based on the 1923 London and Broadway hit play by Leon Gordon, which was in turn adapted from the 1912 novel Hell's Playground by Ida Vera Simonton. The play had already been made into a British part-talkie, also titled White Cargo, with Maurice Evans in 1930. The 1942 film, unlike the play, begins in what was then the present-day, before unfolding in flashback.
My Favorite Spy is a 1951 American comedy spy film directed by Norman Z. McLeod and starring Bob Hope, Hedy Lamarr and Francis L. Sullivan. It was produced and distributed by Paramount Pictures and forms the third of a loose trilogy featuring Hope including My Favorite Blonde and My Favorite Brunette.
Crossroads is a 1942 American mystery film noir directed by Jack Conway and starring William Powell, Hedy Lamarr, Claire Trevor and Basil Rathbone. Powell plays a diplomat whose amnesia about his past subjects him to back-to-back blackmail schemes, which threaten his reputation, job, marriage, and future. The film was inspired by the 1938 French film Crossroads which had also had a British remake Dead Man's Shoes in 1940.
I Take This Woman is a 1940 American drama film directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr. Based on the short story "A New York Cinderella" by Charles MacArthur, the film is about a young woman who attempted suicide in reaction to a failed love affair. The doctor who marries her attempts to get her to love him by abandoning his clinic services to the poor to become a physician to the rich so he can pay for her expensive lifestyle.
The Heavenly Body is a 1944 American romantic comedy film directed by Alexander Hall and starring William Powell, Hedy Lamarr and James Craig. Based on a story by Jacques Théry, with a screenplay by Michael Arlen and Walter Reisch, the film is about the beautiful wife of a professional astronomer who becomes convinced that her astrologer's prediction that she will meet her true love will come true. Produced by Arthur Hornblow Jr., The Heavenly Body was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the United States on March 23, 1944.
Small Town Girl is a 1953 American musical film directed by László Kardos and starring Jane Powell, Farley Granger, and Ann Miller. Busby Berkeley choreographed several dance numbers. Bobby Van performed the memorable "Street Dance", in which he hopped all around town. The film features song performances by Nat King Cole. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, "My Flaming Heart", with music by Nicholas Brodszky and lyrics by Leo Robin. It has no relation to the 1936 MGM film of the same title.
Her Highness and the Bellboy is a 1945 American romantic comedy film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Hedy Lamarr, Robert Walker, June Allyson and Rags Ragland. Written by Richard Connell and Gladys Lehman, the film is about a beautiful European princess who travels to New York City to find the newspaper columnist she fell in love with six years earlier. At her posh New York hotel, she is mistaken for a maid by a kind-hearted bellboy. Charmed by his confusion, the princess insists that he become her personal attendant, unaware that he has fallen in love with her. Her Highness and the Bellboy was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the United States on July 11, 1945.
The Strange Woman is a 1946 American historical melodrama film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Hedy Lamarr, George Sanders and Louis Hayward. It is based on the 1941 novel of the same title by Ben Ames Williams. The screenplay was written by Ulmer and Hunt Stromberg. Originally released by United Artists, the film is now in the public domain.
The Conspirators is a 1944 American film noir, World War II, drama, spy, and thriller film directed by Jean Negulesco. It stars Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid, features Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in supporting roles, and has a cameo of Aurora Miranda singing a Fado. The Conspirators reunites several performers who appeared in Casablanca (1942).
L'Animal is a 1977 French action comedy film directed by Claude Zidi and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Raquel Welch. It was distributed in the United States by Analysis Film Releasing Corp under the title Stuntwoman.
Raw Wind in Eden is a 1958 American CinemaScope South Seas film noir directed by Richard Wilson and starring Esther Williams, Jeff Chandler.
Loves of Three Queens, also known as The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships, is a 1954 Italian anthology film. It was directed by Marc Allégret and Edgar G. Ulmer and stars Hedy Lamarr.
Brona Croft, later known as Lily Frankenstein, is a character on Showtime's Penny Dreadful, portrayed by Billie Piper. Created by writer John Logan, Brona begins the series as an Irish immigrant living in London. An original take on the Bride of Frankenstein story, Piper's character and acting have been acclaimed by critics, calling her "alternately elegant, bewitching, coarse, and frightening."
Elizabeth Inez Cooper was an American actress, noted at the time for closely resembling actress Hedy Lamarr. Before her Hollywood career, Cooper worked in a department store, engaged in modeling jobs and traveled worldwide. Producer Mervyn LeRoy discovered her at a nightclub in 1941, mistaking her for Lamarr. After being offered a professional acting contract, Cooper entered the film industry and studied dramatics, although initially could only secure minor roles.
