I Take This Woman

 

I Take This Woman is a drama film from 1940, directed by W. S. Van Dyke and starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr. The film is about a psychiatrist, Dr. Karl Decker, who saves a young woman, Georgi, from committing suicide on a ship. He helps her find a new purpose in life by working at his clinic for the poor. They fall in love and get married.

 

The film is based on a short story by Charles MacArthur, called 'A New York Cinderella'.

 

• The story was adapted into a screenplay by James Kevin MacGuinness, who also wrote the scripts for some popular films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and The Black Swan (1942).

 

The film also has historical significance, as it was one of the first Hollywood films to deal with the topic of suicide. The film inspired changes in the censorship and moral codes that restricted the depiction of controversial subjects in films.

 

Starring Hedy Lamarr

 

A year after the film was released in 1941, Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil invented a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes. During World War II, they were aware of the problem of radio jamming that affected the torpedoes, and they wanted to create a system that would prevent the enemy from interfering with the signals. Their invention was the precursor to modern wireless technologies which also use frequency hopping and spread spectrum techniques. 

 

• Hedy Lamarr was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.