Lola Montès

France, West Germany, Luxembourg

1955

115 Min

Color

2.55:1

English, German, French

Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
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SCR Annette Wademant, Max Ophüls

CAST Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbrook, Will Quadflieg, Oskar Werner, Ivan Desny, Henry Guisol

MUSIC Georges Auric

Berlinale (Retrospective), Cannes (Cannes Classics), Telluride

Synopsis

Lola Montès is a visually ravishing, narratively daring dramatization of the life of the notorious courtesan and showgirl, played by Martine Carol. With his customary cinematographic flourish and, for the first time, vibrant color, Max Ophuls charts Montès’s scandalous past through the bombastic ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) of the American circus where she ends up performing. Ophuls’s final film, Lola Montès is at once a magnificent romantic melodrama, a meditation on the lurid fascination with celebrity, and a meticulous, one-of-a-kind movie spectacle. —The Criterion Collection

Director

Max Ophüls

Max Ophüls (born Maximillian Oppenheimer, 6 May 1902, Saarbrücken, Germany – 25 March 1957, Hamburg, Germany) was an influential German-born film director who worked in Germany, the United States and France. He made nearly thirty films.

He started his career as a stage actor in 1919 but moved into theatre production in 1924. Two years later, he became creative director of the Burgtheater in Vienna and, having had 200 plays to his credit, turned to film production in 1929, when he became a dialogue director under Anatole Litvak at UFA in Berlin. He worked throughout Germany and directed his first film in 1931, the comedy short Dann schon lieber Lebertran (literally In This Case, Rather Cod-Liver Oil).

Of his early films, the most acclaimed is Liebelei (1933), which included a number of the characteristic elements for which he was to become known: luxurious sets, a feminist attitude, and a duel between a younger and older man.

Predicting… read more

Predicting the Nazi ascendancy, Ophüls, a Jew, fled to France in 1933 after the Reichstag fire and became a French citizen in 1938. After the fall of France to Germany, he travelled through Switzerland and Italy to the USA in 1941, only to become inactive in Hollywood. Fortunately, he was rescued by a longtime fan, director Preston Sturges, and went on to direct a number of distinguished films.

His first Hollywood film was the Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. vehicle, The Exile (1947). Ophuls’ Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), derived from a Stefan Zweig novella is the most highly regarded of the American films. Caught (1949), and The Reckless Moment (1949) followed before his return to Europe in 1950.

Back in France he directed and collaborated on the adaptation of Schnitzler’s La Ronde (1950), which won the 1951 BAFTA Award for Best Film, and Lola Montès (1955) starring Martine Carol and Peter Ustinov, as well as Le Plaisir and The Earrings of Madame de… (1953), the latter with Danielle Darrieux and Charles Boyer, which capped his career. Though he died from rheumatic heart disease in Hamburg, Ophüls was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. —Wikipedia

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Trolley Freak

11Mar13

The last film of Ophüls was, reluctantly, the only one he shot in colour and widescreen. It's a spectacular artificial extravaganza told with unmatched cinematic flair in which the story of Lola unfolds from the confines of a circus. In flashback we follow her progress through life, her many ups and downs, all captured by the director's mobile camera which scales the elaborate decor. A ravishing feast for the eyes..

HKFanatic likes this

There Will Be Josh Schasny

11Oct12

Maybe I am not a fan of melodrama, but this film, as visually stunning as it is in set design and cinematography, is actually pretty dull and boring story-wise. It is a multi-layered retrospective confession narrative focused on the many loves Lola Montes has had over history, some of them noteworthy and powerful. The circus scenes were the most interesting, but apart from the designs of the flashbacks, lackluster.

Peter Rinaldi

30Jul12

Watched this again last night. Totally ahead of its time, even freakin' now. There is no other film that I know of that blends grandiosity and subtlety so well. Find me subtle performances like this in the 50s! YOU CAN'T! And, ok, yes, there are great subtle performances now, but not on this scale. Weird? Hell yeah. Sometimes even hard to watch. But so worth it. And has alot to say about our 'everything 4 sale' times

Howard Orr

26Dec11

Although I've always been mystified as to many critics' claims to this film's greatness, this has one of the great endings in cinema. Selling her hands for kisses through bars in a cage. It's worth stumping up to get the Criterion Blu-ray of this one if you're a fan.