The Biggest Mind Around Those with the Smallest - Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story (spoilers)

Hedy Lamarr.

According to the National Women’s History Museum, Women’s History Month every March is meant to commemorate women’s contributions throughout history. Hedy Lamarr is one of many great women whose contributions to society changed the world. She was known for her invention of frequency hopping that would be the basis for WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and satellites. She was also considered one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood, having inspired the model of Snow White and Catwoman.

        Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story is a 2017 biography movie, directed by Alexandra Dean, about Lamarr’s story, incorporating real footage from her prime. She was regarded as one of the most beautiful Hollywood actresses, and nobody saw her for what she truly was outside her beauty. She had a very inventive mind that was fueled by her father during her childhood. Her invention, frequency hopping, during WWII was designed to guide torpedoes using signals that couldn’t be jammed because the signal would constantly jump between frequencies. The movie also contained interviews from Lamarr’s descendants and Hollywood actors, including Mel Brooks and Diane Kruger. The movie was very effective at conveying Lamarr’s story, but it could’ve expanded more upon the technologies built from frequency hopping. Despite this, it is understandable that the story is mainly about Lamarr’s life and how she didn’t get credit for her design for a long time, which the movie succeeded in conveying.

The film began with Hedy Lamarr’s early life in Austria, born as Hedwig Kiesler, and showed her inventive mind cultivated from her relationship with her father. The film then discussed her early acting career and her divorce from her first husband, an Austrian arms manufacturer connected to the fascist powers, because he was very controlling. Lamarr escaped to London, and later to New York City after booking the same voyage on the ocean liner Normandie as the head of MGM, Louis Mayer, who earlier she had turned down because he didn’t offer her a high enough pay. Now on the same ship together, Mayer was now convinced, and he launched Lamarr’s career in the United States.

Hedy Lamarr's beauty convinced Louis Mayer to recruit her.

 

Hedy Lamarr eventually grew popular in the United States.

        The film goes on to discuss Lamarr’s greatest hits in Hollywood and the people she got involved with. One of these individuals was Howard Hughes, a pilot and businessman. She helped design him a faster plane he could sell to the military by combining the fins of the fastest fish and the wings of the fastest bird to create a swept-back aircraft wing, to which Hughes praised her for being a genius. Lamarr continued to focus on tinkering and inventing, and an opportunity was presented to her when WWII broke out and the Battle of the Atlantic against German U-boats was in full swing. Lamarr designed a system that she called frequency hopping, that used a signal that could not be jammed by hopping between different frequencies. She intended it to be used to guide torpedoes because of the difficulty of hitting a target with conventional unguided torpedoes.

Hedy Lamarr always had an inventive mind in between movies.

Frequency hopping to be used for a guided torpedo.

        She patented her design, but she was rejected and never got credit, forcing her to instead support the war effort with her celebrity looks to get people to buy war bonds. She still never got credit even when the U.S. Navy realized its use and decided to develop the technology in the 1960s. Lamarr’s technology was revolutionary because it formed the basis for military communications, GPS, WiFi, and Bluetooth. Lamarr also pioneered ideas in plastic surgery as she got older, but she started to withdraw from the public eye who only saw her for her beauty and criticized her for her age. It wasn’t until then that word got out about her invention in 1942, and Lamarr finally got credited. At that point, she didn’t care. Lamar passed away in 2000 and receive $0 for her patent.

Hedy Lamarr became a recluse in old age and was criticized.

The director did an amazing job of putting the viewer in Lamarr’s shoes. The viewer could understand her motivations, her dreams, and her rejection from the public eye and her former lovers. It was easy to feel how difficult Lamarr’s life was because of stereotypes, after rejection, and after her divorces. After Lamarr called a friend in the Navy in 1969 to find out what happened to her invention, she found out that they had been developing communications technology based on her patent from 1942.

In conclusion, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story was a great movie that put the viewers in a front row seat into the shoes of Hedy Lamarr and her tragic story. It effectively portrayed her struggles and the end result where she finally got credit for her invention. Not much was needed to be said for how much of a positive impact frequency hopping was. The Navy should name a ship after Hedy Lamarr, if not a warship, then a military research vessel, aligning with Lamar’s inventive and scientific personality. Let us remember her for having the biggest mind around those with the smallest who shut her down.

P.S

I originally wrote this as part of a film review for a history class in March 2023, which I chose to watch because it coincided with Women's History Month and I love learning about old military technology.