Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.5

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf April 12, 2018

As an actress, Hedy Lamarr was defined by her beauty, using good looks to support a Hollywood career that included turns in films such as “White Cargo,” “The Conspirators,” and “Her Highness and the Bellboy.” During her heyday, she created a stir wherever she went, wowing the public with extraordinary glamour. “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story” endeavors to find the woman underneath the attractiveness, identifying the star as a brilliant mind interested in the mastering of inventions, with a strong pull toward science, reaching a specific breakthrough during World War II that’s largely responsible for the world of wi-fi that we know today. “Bombshell” has the benefit of shock value, with director Alexandra Dean selecting an extraordinary topic for documentary dissection, working to redefine Lamarr’s legacy as a figure of allure to one of unheralded brilliance.

Lamarr died in Florida in 2000, leaving behind a collection of audio cassettes hidden in the corner of journalist Fleming Meeks’s office. The tapes included a 1998 interview with Lamarr, delivering an extensive examination of her career and lifelong interests in the world of invention. It was a different Lamarr on the recordings, offering a clear reflection on her achievements and expectations, with Dean threading the conversation throughout the documentary, offering a way for the subject to speak for herself. “Bombshell” goes the traditional filmmaking route, piecing together photos, movie clips, and television show appearances, providing a wealth of imagery to fuel the viewing experience, but the cassettes supply the clearest link to the version of Lamarr Dean is looking to identify, allowing the icon to express herself, sharing the side of her life most people never knew about.

A biographical foundation is poured by Dean, exploring Lamarr’s coming of age in Austria, connecting an early interest in science to her relationship with her father, who nurtured her curiosity during a difficult time of European unrest. Her marriage to Fritz, an armament dealer for the Nazis (also 14 years her senior), proved to be problematic for the Jewish woman, falling in love with a troubled man. The union also inspired a need to escape, working her way out of Vienna, relocating to London to try her hand at acting, putting her extreme looks to use. She caught the eye of Louis B. Mayer, who wanted to transform the beauty into a star, but her participation in the 1933 film “Ecstasy,” where she appeared in the nude, complicated her rise in Hollywood, finally clearing a path for herself, starring alongside Charles Boyer in the 1938 hit, “Algiers,” which launched her as an unforgettable face.

Lamarr’s acting career plays an important part in “Bombshell,” defining a professional arc that strived for thespian legitimacy, but often coasted on visual stimulation, forcing Lamarr to keep jockeying for attention, making her biggest splash in the 1949 epic, “Samson and Delilah,” which brought her Technicolor glory. Throughout her acting career, Lamarr worked hard, forced to bend to the will of her contract status, turning to her love of inventing to provide a mental workout screen performance couldn’t provide, finding herself marginalized in the business. The identification of Lamarr as a genius keeps “Bombshell” compelling, showcasing layers underneath looks that favored scientific challenges to benefit the world, including a wartime effort to bring soda pop to the masses in cube form. Her endeavors even attracted the attention of Howard Hughes, securing her drive to expand on ideas, finally reaching a plan to perfect radio-controlled torpedoes, helping American forces at sea with precise attack capabilities, later identified as “frequency hopping.” It was discovery and development that would prove to be her greatest invention, but mismanagement complicated her breakthrough, leaving Lamarr without the credit she deserved.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

"Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story" arrives on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded image (1.78:1 aspect ratio) presentation. Like many documentaries, the film creates a patchwork quilt of film and video sources, tracking the subject's history and achievements during her lifetime. The digital quality of the production is displayed, with low-res clips employed, and HD cinematography for interview segments comes through clearly. Detail is especially strong on faces, tracking skin textures and subtle emotional responses. Clothing is fibrous too, and displays of paperwork and animation are sharp, making shots pausable to grasp all intended frame information. Colors are equally kind, offering lively primaries with contemporary outfits, while period wear also adds varied hues. Delineation is communicative. Artifacts are present off and on during the viewing experience, with banding appearing on occasion and macroblocking a periodic issue.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA sound mix offer a largely frontal listening event for "Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story." Interview audio is mostly precise, delivering slightly emotional recollections of the subject's highs and lows, while cassette examination preserves the hissy, distanced sound of the format. Scoring is agreeable and balanced, with supportive instrumentation helping to support the tonal flow of the work. Sound effects are loud and defined, helping to sell the suggestion of movement in still photographs and excerpts from silent movies. Surrounds aren't active, but there are select moments of expanse. Low-end is limited, only punching through during discussions of World War II and additional military conflicts and weapons testing.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• "Interview Outtake: Gillian Jacobs" (1:46, HD) covers her research on Lamarr, and her drive to restore credit to the inventor and many women who were refused respect and payment for their world-changing scientific ideas.

• "Interview Outtake: Mel Brooks" (1:55, HD) identifies Hedy Lamarr's inspiration for the Hedley Lamarr character in "Blazing Saddles," with the director trying to figure out a perfect villain name, coming up with something wonderfully bizarre instead. Incredibly, the actress ended up suing the studio for defamation.

• "Interview Outtake: Robert Osborne" (1:37, HD) highlights his friendship with Lamarr, recalling her taste in art and her speed of thought, often moving too fast conversationally for anyone to truly understand what she was saying.

• Interview (3:16, HD) is a brief overview of production intention with director Alexandra Dean, who recalls her research into Hedy Lamarr's life and her discovery of Meek's recordings, which provided a precise launching point for the creation of the documentary. Dean also describes her interest in restoring Lamarr's legacy as a genius, giving her the recognition she deserves.

• And a Theatrical Trailer (1:19, HD) is included.

Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"Bombshell" provides an overview of her six marriages and fledgling career, using interviews with family members and professional admirers (including Mel Brooks and Peter Bogdanovich) to beef up the celebratory mood. There's darkness as well, detailing an aging process that didn't go well for Lamarr, who tried to keep her looks through plastic surgery, dealing with depression through addiction, creating a reclusive personality. However, love remains for the star and mother, as Dean is careful to position her subject as an architect of the world we know today, clearing the path toward ubiquitous communication through an invention meant to bring the Nazis to their knees. "Bombshell" is sensational when focused on Lamarr's amazing achievements, offering sensitivity to a complicated life but also assigning heroism to an unlikely source, achieving its goal to position Hedy Lamarr in an all new light.