LOLA MONTÈS Movie Review

The final film by the great Max Ophüls is a whirling and sensuous portrait of the famous 19th-century courtesan Lola Montès, who was mistress to Franz Liszt and King Ludwig of Bavaria, but who ended up as a circus attraction, recounting tales from her past in exchange for coins from the audience. Ophüls conceived the film as the culmination of his life's work; used to working on limited budgets and with technical limitations, he had created masterpiece after masterpiece (The Earrings of Madame de … and La Ronde are but two) out of the most meager of means. Now he had the backing to make one of his jewel-like romances on a large scale, and for a much wider audience. Martine Carol was signed to play Lola, and Anton Walbrook, Ivan Desny, and Oskar Werner joined Peter Ustinov, who had the central role of the circus ringmaster who narrates Lola's history to the circus patrons—and to us. The film was shot in color and in the widescreen CinemaScope process, which Ophüls uses to breathtaking effect, particularly in the brilliantly choreographed and heartbreaking circus sequences which “bracket” the flashbacks of Lola's life. (The film's closing sequence, in which customers line up to pay a dollar to kiss Lola's hand, is one of the most emotionally complex and heartbreaking passages in all of Ophüls's work.) Lola Montès was unveiled in France in 1955 with great fanfare, but its premiere was a disaster with both the public and the newspaper critics. The producers, desperate for a return on their investment, began cutting away at the 140-minute film until they had hacked away almost an hour, rearranging the film's chronology in the process. This 92-minute version was dubbed and sent to America as The Sins of Lola Montès, where it sank to the depths of late-night local TV broadcasts. Ophüls never survived the indignity, and died in 1957 as the truncated Lola Montès was being shipped off to the few theatres that played it. In 1969, when a partially restored, 110-minute version was assembled from the surviving print materials and was reissued in the U.S., film critic and historian Andrew Sarris pronounced it the greatest film of all time. Agreeing or disagreeing is beside the point; the very fact that the broken pieces of Ophüls's beloved creation could, in true labyrinthine Ophülsian fashion, wend their way across the sea to touch hearts in the way he intended is a triumphant coda to the great director's brilliant career. (The 110-minute version has been lovingly transferred to letterboxed laserdiscs and videocassettes.)

NEXT STOP … Liebelei, The Earrings of Madame de …, Le Plaisir

1955 140m/C FR Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbrook, Ivan Desny, Oskar Werner; D: Max Ophuls; W: Max Ophuls; M: Georges Auric. LV, Letterbox CRC, NLC