Month: November 2024

Ecstasy

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A pre-fame Hedy Lamarr

1933’s Ecstasy is famous for a couple of reasons. It was the first non-porn movie to show a woman having an orgasm, or so its reputation insists. And it was the film that introduced Hedy Lamarr to the world. Ironically, the actress so shockingly beautiful that other Hollywood screen goddesses were wary of being seen with her doesn’t actually look that hot in this infamous but rarely seen Czech drama. Or not always. From certain angles she’s devastating. From others fairly plain. In some she even appears to have the shadow of a moustache. The same thing happened to Marlene Dietrich. On home turf in Germany she looked like a hausfrau, but once … Read more

Immaculate

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Close up of Sister Cecilia as she gives birth

Sydney Sweeney plays a nun – how about that for an elevator pitch? Immaculate is a film that Sweeney really wanted to play, having first auditioned to play the lead role aged 17. Now, ten years on, with money in the bank and acting as a producer on the movie, she finally gets the project aloft, a touch of a rewrite here, a fave director there and casting herself as a sweet novitiate nun who become the brood mare of… well it must be Satan, though no one ever utters the name. A “devil’s dick” movie then, joining the likes of Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen, with the plot remarkably close to The … Read more