3/10
The Worst Hedy Lamarr Film I've Ever Seen
18 January 2009
Whatever possessed HL to appear in this ridiculous film which panders to the worst excesses of male chauvinism prevalent in Hollywood in 1948.I fully endorse "cheeseplease's" comments.We all know HL was intelligent (co-designer of an electronic torpedo guidance system patented with a male colleague) as well as being very beautiful and I had hopes in this film she would espouse tracts of Freud/Junge and show us her innate well bred poise and intelligence.What we got, or rather what she was "saddled" with, was some airhead of a Hollywood scriptwriter & producer giving us the most facile, unfunny, badly constructed so-called "comedy" screenplay I have seen in a long while.

I too found nothing to laugh at in this contrived one dimensional film.I presume that by 1948 in this "B" feature, Hedy was getting rather desperate for good scripts or needed the money.The same goes for Robert Cummings.(How mush better he was in Hitchcock's "Saboteur" (1945) with Priscilla Lane or even his "Dial M For Murder (1953)with Grace Kelly.The subject film never touched on psychiatry presumably because the screen writer and producer knew nothing about it and patronisingly considered it an unfunny subject for American audiences in 1948.That just exposes their ignorance when films like Hitchcock's "Spellbound" (1945) had been filmed.Silly irritating sequences of both leads imagining each other's faces superimposed on other peoples bodies really annoyed me.How could two rational people who had reached an elevated position in their respective careers appear so foolish?Pulling silly faces or reacting in a crass way in these sequences is certainly not funny to an intelligent audience.

Why then did I purchase this DVD?Well I had hopes of seeing another good performance by HL like she played in "Come Live With Me"(1941) a witty and literate film opposite Jimmy Stewart.I rate the latter as her best film ever as her own character has verisimilitude as an Austrian refugee - albeit a very beautiful one.At least it is another rare HL film in my collection of her.Verdict - 3/10 could do better.
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