First sex scene

An 18-year-old Austrian actress, Hedy Lamarr, burst onto the big screen in the Czech film Ecstasy in 1933. Two scenes in particular caused a sensation. In the first, Lamarr swims naked in a lake. In the second, she has sex with a man, in what is believed to be the first depiction of intercourse in a non-pornographic film. The camera is closely framed on Lamarr’s face during the scene, but her character is clearly in the throes of passion – cinema’s first sex scene is also likely its first depiction of female orgasm. (Alber Deane)