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The Eyes of Hedy Lamarr

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Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr in Comrade X (1940)

It was a strange movie made at a strange time by an eminent director (King Vidor). I had never seen Comrade X before, and what I remember most about it were the eyes of Hedy Lamarr. It was an early Hollywood film—released by MGM no less—by the Austrian actress who caused a succès de scandale seven years earlier when she appeared in the buff in a Czech film by Gustav Machaty called Ecstasy.

The strange thing is that Hedy was one of the most intelligent-looking actresses in Hollywood. This is borne out by the fact that she also had a career as an inventor. Not the sort of thing one would expect with a nudie actress.

Hedy Kiesler (Later: Lamarr) in Ecstasy (1933)

I have always regarded Hedy Lamarr as one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood. I watch her films whenever I can because seeing her films gives me a frisson of sorts.

Comrade X was released a year before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We were officially an ally of Russia at the time and were running aid ships to Stalin via the port of Murmansk. In addition to Gable and Lamarr, the film starred all the usual Slavic suspects, such as Oscar Homolka, Vladmir Sokolov, Felix Bressart, and Mikhail Rasumny. In a few short years, the film’s goofy innocence would be a red flag to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who saw the film as a kowtowing to the Soviet enemy.

Hedy Lamarr as a Russian Streetcar Motorman in Comrade X

When I have recovered sufficiently from my broken collar bone, I plan to seek out and read Lamarr’s ghost-written autobiography, Ecstasy and Me.

Morose Delectation, 1970s Style

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Michael York and Jenny Agutter in Logan’s Run (1976)

The 1970s were a lonely decade for me. At the beginning of the decade, I was still a Master’s Candidate in UCLA’s film school, but rapidly discovering that the politics of the department were pushing me away. At the same time, I was recovering from a 1966 brain surgery that removed a pituitary tumor, as well as what was left of the pituitary gland. I looked absurdly young, yet felt that I was, for all intents and purposes, a hopeless celibate from Mars.

Cable TV introduced me to a number of actresses who were all too willing to be nude on screen. They included Sylvia Kristel of Emmanuelle fame, the gorgeous Nastassja Kinski, and Britt Ekland. But my favorite was Jenny Agutter, a classy looking Brit who showed off her stuff in:

  • Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971)
  • Michael Anderson’s Logan’s Run (1976)
  • Sidney Lumet’s Equus (1977)
  • Monte Hellman’s China 9 Liberty 37 (1978)
Jenny Agutter and David Gulpilil in Walkabout (1971)

My friend Alain called my interest in these young, delicious actresses a form of “morose delectation.” I am sure he was right. Fortunately, I got through the 1970s and discovered that I was not from Mars: I was just another lonely earthling.

All the Babes Are Leaving

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Tawny Kitaen (1961-2021)

One way to tell you’re getting old is to see what happened to all the babes of the 1960s and 1970s. I was surprised to hear that Tawny Kitaen had passed away. Not that I was a big an of hers, but never was there such a moniker that screamed B-A-B-E in Neon All-Caps. She was one of a troupe that included actresses like Joey Heatherton and Ann-Margret and “celebrities” such as Prince Andrew’s main squeeze Koo Stark and Profumo Affair bad girls Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies.

I suppose it is inevitable if you live long enough. I still think of Sônia Braga, Jenny Agutter, Françoise Dorléac, Dominique Sanda, and Maria Schneider. They were beautiful, and they populated my dreams as a young man. Now that I am no longer a young man, I can see that all of us are on the same journey through life.

My Muses Part 1

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Rita Tushingham

I had always viewed myself as something of an ugly duckling. In grade school, I was always close to being the shortest kid in class. Also, I was always a bit on the scruffy side—and I still am. So when I wound up in college, some six hundred miles from home (and me never having been more than a few miles from home before), I found myself gravitating toward the movies.

The first film I saw projected at Dartmouth’s Fairbanks Hall was Carl Dreyer’s Day of Wrath (1943), a film about witchcraft that got me started thinking about film as an art form. I was particularly impressed by the Danish actress Lisbeth Movin, who plays a young witch married to a minister. I don’t think I had ever seen an actress quite so beautiful. Now, some sixty years later, I still think of her as radiant.

Lisbeth Movin in Dreyer’s Day of Wrath

I was always enthralled by the beauty of certain actresses, even though I felt like Caliban in front of most girls. At the time, Dartmouth College had only male students; so I was relatively safe from making a fool of myself.

My next “muse” was Rita Tushingham who made a big impact on me during the 1960s.

Another View of Lovey Rita

Her eyes were so close together under her bangs, and her nose was the perfect ski jump, but I was enthralled. She had been described by some in the press as “ugly,” but I did not think so. According to an article in the guardian, “A New York Times reporter who met her described her as ‘a slip of a girl, her uncosmeticised face framed in straight dark hair, wearing a sweater and jeans, with those enormous eyes incessantly expressive even when the rest of the small face disappeared behind a big yellow coffee cup.’”

I think it was the eyes that did it. I have always been a sucker for women with eyes that seemed to come to life. Today I saw her first film, Tony Richardson’s A Taste of Honey (1961). She was to appear in other 1960s productions such as The Girl with Green Eyes (1964) and Doctor Zhivago (1965), but it was that gamine Rita of the 1960s that I so dearly loved.