When reading up about actress Hedy Lamarr in connection to the praise for the doc Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (2017),I was surprised to learn that Lamarr had appeared in a Czech film,which is credited as the first non-"Adult" title to feature a (simulated) sex scene and a woman having a orgasm on screen. Having been interested in viewing the movie for ages,I decided during ICM's Eastern European viewing challenge to drop ecstasy.
View on the film:
Part-Silent Movie/Part-Talkie, co-writer/(with Frantisek Horky and Jacques A. Koerpel) director Gustav Machaty makes both formats hold together with a refined Expressionism style spun from evocative close-ups on Hermann's face with eye-catching shards of light illuminating the disintegration of Hermann and Emil's marriage. Going on only a five page script (!) Machaty makes each snippet of dialogue count, by using it to open up Hermann's innermost feelings in crisp outdoor sequences, and to also unveil the drained state Emil and Hermann share.
Adapting Robert Horky's novel into a really short and sweet script, the writers do very well at drawing a silky smooth Melodrama by holding Hermann as the key to it all,who hands out the wish fulfilment in this "Women's Picture" of falling passionate in love with a strapping young woodsmen,met at a time when Hermann's psychological sexual desires are reaching the surface. Lying that she was older than 17 when production started in 1932, Hedy Lamarr owns the film as Hermann,thanks to Lamarr taking left-field choices with her expressive performance, such as playing scenes when topless not as sexual, but joyfully free and liberating,and bringing a frustrated, downcast withdrawn state to Hermann on her marriage lacking any feeling of ecstasy.
View on the film:
Part-Silent Movie/Part-Talkie, co-writer/(with Frantisek Horky and Jacques A. Koerpel) director Gustav Machaty makes both formats hold together with a refined Expressionism style spun from evocative close-ups on Hermann's face with eye-catching shards of light illuminating the disintegration of Hermann and Emil's marriage. Going on only a five page script (!) Machaty makes each snippet of dialogue count, by using it to open up Hermann's innermost feelings in crisp outdoor sequences, and to also unveil the drained state Emil and Hermann share.
Adapting Robert Horky's novel into a really short and sweet script, the writers do very well at drawing a silky smooth Melodrama by holding Hermann as the key to it all,who hands out the wish fulfilment in this "Women's Picture" of falling passionate in love with a strapping young woodsmen,met at a time when Hermann's psychological sexual desires are reaching the surface. Lying that she was older than 17 when production started in 1932, Hedy Lamarr owns the film as Hermann,thanks to Lamarr taking left-field choices with her expressive performance, such as playing scenes when topless not as sexual, but joyfully free and liberating,and bringing a frustrated, downcast withdrawn state to Hermann on her marriage lacking any feeling of ecstasy.