Stephen Shearer - Beautiful - The Life of Hedy Lamarr

Because of its erotic story line, written with very limited dialogue, and its dramatic photography, Extaze has become a historically important Czech film. Its mature central theme was considered daring in its day but not shocking in its execution.

Hedy was not the first actress to be considered for the role of Eva. According to the Mexican film star Lupita Tovar, it was she who was offered the role of Eva first. Tovar, who had starred in the 1931 Spanish-language version of Dracula filmed at Universal Studios, was known as Mexico’s Sweetheart. Engaged to Paul Kohner, who in 1932 was a foreign sales agent for Universal in Berlin, she had to turn the part down when he read that Lupita was required to appear nude in one scene. 1Machatý then at some point offered the role to Hedy, and she agreed to do the picture.

“After we were married we went to Prague to visit the set,” Tovar recalled. “And I remember Hedy Kiesler playing the piano [for a scene]…. She was very shy.” 2Hedy’s shyness may have been a result of the pending nude scene.

The brief nude sequence apparently caused no concern for her at the time, since she later wrote, “There was no reason for me to be apprehensive about the movie.” 3But there also would be another scene that did not call for nudity but was very graphic and sensual, in which Adam makes love to Eva, which Hedy may have been anxious about. By the time both of these sequences were filmed, Hedy was involved with her leading man, Aribert Mog, the same young German film actor who had fallen in love with her during the filming of Die Koffer des Herrn O.F.

At twenty-seven years of age, the handsome, masculine, Teutonic (and as “Aryan” as Nature could allow) Aribert Mog had become somewhat of a matinee idol, displaying a passable amount of talent with an abundance of brawny sex appeal. It was not unthinkable that Hedy would be attracted to him, though their affair barely lasted the duration of the filming.

Mog’s most important work would come in 1936 in the classic German film Fährmann Maria ( Ferryman Maria ), which starred Sybille Schmitz. As a soldier in the Nazi services during World War II, Mog would tragically be killed on October 2, 1941, while in action in Nova Trojanova, then the Soviet Union, during the early days of Germany’s war against Russia.

The scenes of Eva swimming au naturel in the pond, running nude through the woods when her horse takes off, and being discovered by Adam were filmed without event. Hedy later wrote, “I remember it was windy but warm, and the breeze was refreshing on my body as I undressed gingerly behind the broadest tree I could find. Then I gave my signal…and the director gave his…. One deep breath, and I ran zigzagging from tree to tree and into the lake. My only thought was ‘I hope they get the splash.’” 4

Later, when she came to the United States in 1937, Hedy would deny her willing participation in the filming, saying that she was unaware of the nude scenes when she signed the contract. Another writer, however, put it more clearly: “She was ambitious and reasoned that if the picture was well received her career would be made.” 5Certainly, she knew the scenes were in the script. According to film-genre writer Jan Christopher Horak, quoting the film’s cinematographer: “Cameraman Jan Stallich substantiates her eagerness to please; ‘As the star of the picture, she knew she would have to appear naked in some scenes. She never made a fuss about it during production.’” 6

Hedy later wrote that she argued with Machatý about the inclusion of the nude scene but that he threatened her into submission. Taking a different tack, she also said that because of her naïveté and youth, she did the swim and the run au naturel but with the understanding that the photographer would be positioned far away and would be using a zoom lens only for her close-up shot after she took cover.

When Extaze is viewed today in its most restored version, it is obvious that Hedy was relaxed and quite aware of where the camera was at all times. Her excuses explaining away her youthful “impropriety” made good copy when she arrived in America. But they simply were not true. She would not have disagreed with Machatý. He was much too important a director at the time. (Later, in Hollywood, they were great friends.) Add this to the fact that the scenes were shot repeatedly and actor Mog was used in them and that there were several close-ups and stills made between takes.

The cinema historian Patrick Robertson wrote in Film Facts in 2001, “Curiously, Ecstasy is celebrated as the first motion picture containing a nude scene, which it is not, rather than the first to show sexual intercourse, which it was.” 7And it is that one scene in the film that created the most controversy. When Eva comes to Adam’s cottage in the woods, it is storming outside, and they make love for the first time. Symbolism permeates throughout the scene. The photography is stylized and romantic. As Eva succumbs to Adam’s lustful charms, she lays back on his bed, her string of pearls breaking and falling to the floor. In angled close-ups of her ecstatic face, Eva experiences the first deep, satisfying waves of sexual fulfillment.

“I was told to lie down with my hands above my head while Aribert Mog whispered in my ear and then kissed me in the most uninhibited fashion,” Hedy wrote. “When Aribert slipped down and out of camera, I just closed my eyes.” 8According to Hedy, as soon as Mog made his move, symbolizing his making love to her, Machatý stuck a safety pin repeatedly into her buttocks to achieve the close-up facial expressions the cinematographer captured.

It was reported in the press in 1966 that the film studio producer Josef Auerbach ordered more than 25,000 feet of the love scene in Extaze cut and burned before the picture was released. He considered those scenes “too sexy” and sizzling. “The love scenes were real,” Auerbach said in 1952, “since Hedy was engaged to the leading man at the time.” 9

Hedy took offense at this remark and refuted Auerbach in later years. She did, however, concede about her sensually handsome leading man: “Aribert had what would be called today ‘Actors Studio’ realism. I do not deny that there were other shots when his vibrations of actual sex proved highly contagious…and I ended up ‘winging it’ too.” 10

Extaze was released in Europe by Slavia Films. The running time for most copies is approximately eighty-five minutes, depending on the edited version. However, there was also a French-language version shot simultaneously, with some scenes employing different actors. The French version, which is known to have also included an extended, longer tracking shot of Hedy’s nude run, was called Extase in France and premiered in Paris on March 28, 1933. It ran ninety-five minutes in length, nearly ten minutes longer than today’s definitive, restored print, indicating possibly additional scenes. (The original negative of the film was destroyed when the Russians invaded Budapest, Hungary, in 1956, according to Hedy.)

For the more conservative German censors, the nude scenes were alternately filmed with strategically placed bushes and trees shadowing Hedy’s body. Cuts were made in part because of Hedy’s Jewish heritage. (The German version of the film was banned for over two years.)

By the time production was completed on Extaze at the end of the summer of 1932, Hedy’s affair with Aribert Mog had quietly run its course. With no new romance on the horizon, she returned to Vienna. Apparently, possibly realizing that in Extaze she was a bit heavy, Hedy may have repeated her earlier dieting regime, though not with the same stimulant. In the fall of 1932, she became seriously ill once again, resulting in a drastic weight loss and the decline of her health. In a newspaper interview in early 1933, she told the reporter that after she completed Extaze , “I became really ill with an intestinal infection….” 11Whatever the illness, it left her reed thin.