Ecstasy

How many people request movies from Netflix that were produced in Prague in 1933? I have a list of what I'll call novelty movies that I throw into my Netflix queue when I need a backup. Most of these are significant for one reason or another. My latest Netflix movie was one of those.

Ecstasy, with its soft-core erotic name, is nothing of the sort by modern standards. However, in 1933, this movie blew the doors off of the film industry. The movie was even seized by customs officials when it was imported to the United States. The reason? There were three. Let's understand the plot of the movie first.

The movie is quasi-silent. There is some dialogue, but mostly the movie is music like a silent film. Hedy Lamarr stars and a newly married young bride. She marries an older man and on that wedding night they go to their room. Reason #1 - being their wedding night, there is much foreshadowing that they are preparing to consummate their marriage. There they slowly get ready for that wedding night. However, he shuns her advances and falls asleep. Meanwhile, she seductively falls asleep in bed.

Realizing her mistake she quickly files for divorce, but is unhappy. So one morning she hops on her horse and rides to a creek. You see the horse standing on the shore with her clothes laid upon its back. Then there are several long views of her swimming - naked. There was a 2 second scene of her breasts and a blurry image of her bottomless.

Reason #2 - the next scene was actually comical. The horse hears another horse and is drawn to it, leaving Hedy in the creek without her clothes. She chases the horse exposed bosoms and all, but realizes she cannot catch it. Finally a fine strapping man secures the horse, but he doesn't see her. She scampers into the woods to hide and we catch a 5 second long-view glimpse of her fully naked body. He finally sees her and tosses her clothes to her.

Reason #3 - Later, she lies awake thinking of this young man and decides to pursue him. She walks out at night, through the woods and finds his home. She enters his small hut, they embrace, she falls to the bed, he moves down "there" and the camera moves up to her face where she closes her eyes, begins to breathe heavily, then gives the quintessential silent orgasmic face, a face that graces the cover of the movie, and was briefly stolen by software maker Corel for one of their editing programs.

The movies then loses some of its steam steam. Her ex-husband returns, he meets her new fling, realizes that he cannot regain her, then ex-hubby dies, and finally Hedy tearfully leaves the new guy at the train station while he sleeps on the bench.

The novelty of the movie is that claims to be the first non-stag film to show a woman's pubic hair, though the scene shows her from what must be 100 yards from the camera, she's running from left-to-right, not facing the camera, so you only get a side-view, and the scene was like 2 seconds long. And second, as mentioned before, it implies her orgasm during oral sex.

Again, by today's standards, this movie probably would get a PG-13 rating. We've become numb to nakedness and sexuality. However, in 1933, this was a big deal.

Moreover, Hedy Lamarr made quite a name for herself outside of this film. The is also co-credited with inventing a spread spectrum device, the forerunner to wireless communications. Furthermore, she was mocked repeatedly in Blazing Saddles and even sued Mel Brooks for infringing on her right of publicity, a case that was settled out of court.

Ecstasy is 129 minutes long and did I mention that it's in German with subtitles?

I have to admit that I was more interested in the background of the movie than the actual movie. However, because of it's novelty and my anxiousness to see the movie, I'll give it 4 stars.