What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

You have to be into silent films and their conventions to really enjoy this flick, even though it isn't truly silent. There are a very few lines of dialog (in German) but the vision and execution are very much of the silent era. I'm not into that, hence the low score. Some of it was pretty ludicrous to me, such as the symbolism of the horses, eventually focusing on the pregnant horse. And what is up with that Soviet-style sequence at the end? Was Machaty a Communist? It doesn't seem so, since the rest of the film has so much to do with individual wants and needs. It's hard for me to critique the acting, since silent film is basically a different art form, requiring a different skill set from actors than modern film, so I'll just let that go. And about Hedy Lamarr's nude scenes, well they are impressive for the times, even in Europe. Most of them are very long shots, where you can't really see anything, or for that matter, tell if it's really her. (I understand that it IS her) There is one reasonably close-in shot of her topless that for two seconds or so show her breasts to good effect. A lovely girl with lovely breasts. Nowadays, they would be known as "A" cups, but (take note, ladies) boobies do NOT have to be big to be beautiful.Overall you can probably pass on this one unless you want to see Hedy Lamarr's scenes mentioned above, or if you are a silent film buff. From other comments, some people think it is very good.

Ecstacy (1933) ** (out of 4) Extremely bizarre Czechoslovakian film features Hedy Lamarr as a new wife who has an affair because her husband isn't living up to her sexual passions. This film was quite controversial when released and it remains rather shocking due to how much sexuality and nudity there is. We've all seen pre-codes from Hollywood but this film here puts them to shame because there are countless love scenes. The most infamous moment is Lamarr's skinny dipping scene, which ends with her climbing out of the water and chasing her horse in the nude. I had heard that there was nudity here but I really didn't expect as much as there was. We see several shots of her breasts as well as a full frontal shot, which certainly wasn't the norm them. Outside of these moments the film is rather tiresome. It's party sound and part silent but I think it's clear that there's more style than substance here. The story itself is rather bland and wasn't anything new even for 1933 standards. The film, on a technical level, is very good and it's clear that it was influenced by German cinema of the time. Lamarr is good in her role but she isn't given too much to do outside the sexual nature of the story.

This was a very daring film for it's day. It could even be described as soft-core porn for the silent era. It was a talkie, but dialog was extremely limited, and in German. One did not need it anyway.The young (19) Hedy Lamarr gets trapped in a loveless marriage to an obsessive (stereotype?) German and after a short time in a marriage that was apparently never consummated, returns home to her father.In a famous and funny scene, she decides to go skinny dipping one morning when her horse is distracted by another. She is then forced to run across a field chasing after it, as she left her clothing on the horse. An engineer retrieves her horse and returns her clothing - after getting an eyeful.They sit for a while and, in a zen moment, he presents her with a flower with a bee sitting on top. This is where she thinks back to her honeymoon and the actions of her husband and an insect. She knows this man is different.She returns home and eventually seeks out our young fellow, and finds the ecstasy she was denied. You can use your imagine here, but his head disappears from view and we see her writhing with pleasure. Since he never got undressed, you can imagine... Certainly, an homage to women by the director Gustav Machatý, and a shock to 1933 audiences.The only thing that mars this beautifully filmed movie is the excessive guilt, and a strange ending.

I gather at least a few people watched it on Sept.2 on TCM. If you did you know that Hedy had to change her name to avoid being associated with this movie when she came the U.S. It was a huge scandal and I gather that the original release in the U.S. was so chopped up by censors that it was practically unintelligible. I watched because I had just seen a documentary on "bad women", actresses in the U.S. pre- movie censorship board set up in the early '30s. It looked to me as though they got away with a lot more than Hedy's most "sensational" shots in "Ecstasy". In fact Hedy looked positively innocent in this, by today's standards, and it was nice to see her early unspoiled beauty. It was a nice, lyrical movie to relax to. I loved it for what it was: a simple romance. I watched it after pre- recording it during a sleepless early A.M. I would love to see the first version released in the U.S. for comparison's sake.