Lola Montès

Not to be confused with Lola Montes (dancer). For other uses, see Lola Montez (disambiguation).

Lola Montès is a 1955 historical romance film, and the last completed film of German-born director Max Ophüls. Based on the novel La vie extraordinaire de Lola Montès by Cécil Saint-Laurent, the film depicts the life of Irish dancer and courtesan Lola Montez (1821–1861), portrayed by Martine Carol, and tells the story of the most famous of her many notorious affairs, those with Franz Liszt and Ludwig I of Bavaria. A co-production between France and West Germany, the dialogue is mostly in French and German, with a few English-language sequences.

Lola Montès
French theatrical release poster
Directed by	Max Ophüls
Screenplay by	Max Ophüls Annette Wademant Jacques Natanson
Based on	La vie extraordinaire de Lola Montès by Cécil Saint-Laurent
Produced by	Albert Caraco
Starring	Martine Carol Peter Ustinov Anton Walbrook
Cinematography	Christian Matras
Edited by	Madeleine Gug
Music by	Georges Auric
Distributed by	Gamma Film (France) Union-Film-Verleih (West Germany)
Release dates	23 December 1955 (1955-12-23) (France) 12 January 1956 (1956-01-12) (West Germany)
Running time	114 minutes (original, lost version) 110 minutes/114 minutes (restored versions)
Countries	France West Germany
Languages	French German English
Budget	US$1,500,000

The most expensive European film produced up to its time, Lola Montès underperformed at the box office, but it had an important artistic influence on the French New Wave cinema movement, and continues to have many distinguished critical admirers. Heavily re-edited (multiple times) and shortened after its initial release for commercial reasons, it has been twice restored (in 1968 and 2008). The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in North America by The Criterion Collection in February 2010.

Plot

In New Orleans in the 1850s, a whip-wielding ringmaster announces to the crowd the “attraction of the century” and “the most interesting predator” of his circus: the former royal mistress Maria Dolores Porriz y Montez, Countess von Landsfeld, known as Lola Montez. Richly adorned, she is carried into the circus ring to receive questions from the audience. Each question costs 25 cents, which are not intended as a payment for Lola, as the ringmaster announces, since they will be donated by her to a correctional home for fallen women. The crowd shouts questions to Lola about her waist size and her affairs, but the ringmaster answers them humorously. A parade of lovers begins, where the circus performers represent the number of Lola's lovers. The question of whether she still remembers the past leads Lola to flashback to her affair with the composer Franz Liszt.

The affair with Franz Liszt

Liszt and Lola are on their way to Rome in his lavish carriage, and the composer, who writes pieces for Lola to dance to in front of an audience, notices that they are being followed by her own carriage, so that Lola can leave at any time. The couple spend the night in an inn, and, when he thinks Lola is asleep, Liszt writes a farewell note that includes a short musical piece. As he tries to leave the common room, however, Lola catches him, and they make love one more time. In next morning, Lola gathers up the pieces of Liszt's composition, and they part ways, Liszt saying that she at least remains faithful to his music.

Childhood and youth

The ringmaster announces a change of scene and costume, as they will now deal with Lola's childhood and youth. A flashback shows the young Lola and her mother boarding a ship back to Europe from India after the death of her father. While her mother has a cabin to herself so her lover, Lieutenant James, can visit her, Lola has to sleep in the dormitory with other girls. In Paris, her mother wants her to marry an old baron who was the family's banker. To avoid this fate, Lola escapes with Lieutenant James, who confesses his love to her, and they get married.

At the beginning of the second act in the circus, the ringmaster claims that the marriage was happy, but a flashback shows that after five years Lola fled from her violent, constantly drunk and cheating husband. This is followed by the further life of Lola, depicted in the ring by elaborate tableaux vivants and acted scenes. Lola makes her debut as a dancer in Madrid, is kidnapped by a rich Russian, whose love she rejected, and is freed by the intervention of the French ambassador. During these performances, a doctor talks with the manager of the circus, who is still dressed as a clown and counting the daily profits. The doctor warns that Lola's heart is weak and he is concerned for her well-being, particularly given her act's dangerous finale.

Lola begins to tell her story herself, though she forgets her lines and has to be prompted by the ringmaster. She relates how she danced in Tivoli and was in love with the conductor of the orchestra, and a short flashback shows how she found out on stage that he was married, so she interrupted the performance to slap him and expose him in front of his wife. After that, she became a celebrity on the French Riviera and was visited by a parade of suitors, and the ringmaster visited her to offer her a contract with his circus, which she refused.

Back in the circus, while the list of Lola's increasingly-powerful lovers is read out, ranging from Richard Wagner to Frédéric Chopin, from Count von Lichtenfeld to the Grand Duke of Hesse, she swings higher and higher on a trapeze structure until she reaches a platform at the top of the circus tent, where a performer dressed as King Ludwig I of Bavaria awaits her.

Lola Montez and Ludwig I of Bavaria

The extended flashback of Lola's time in Bavaria begins with her offering a handsome student hiking in the snowy mountains a ride in her carriage if he will show her the way to Munich. He agrees, though he had been headed in the opposite direction. Lola hopes to get a position dancing at the Bavarian royal theater, but she is not hired, as they do not like her Spanish style of dancing. As she walks the streets after her failed audition, she is approached by a soldier in the king's regiment, and they begin an affair, as she hopes he will help her meet the king.

After several weeks, Lola loses her patience and simply charges at King Ludwig on her horse during a military parade. Instead of being punished, she is granted a private audience with Ludwig, during which she complains about the stodginess of the people who did not hire her and clears any doubts about her figure by tearing open her bodice. Ludwig arranges for her to perform at the National Theatre, after which he offers her a permanent position, but she says she has proven she can dance and is leaving. He keeps her at court by commissioning a portrait of her and continually delaying its completion, and she becomes his mistress.

Gradually, Lola begins to influence Ludwig's politics. During the March Revolution of 1848, the citizens rebel against her, and she flees across the border to Austria at night with the help of the student she met on the way to Munich. She rejects the possibility of a simple life as the student's wife, saying that something has broken in her and she is no longer capable of love.

Finale

The ringmaster announces that, after this, Lola remembered his offer to work together and joined the circus. She has been performing every day for four months, ending her act by jumping from the top platform onto a padded mat—without a net. The doctor asks the manager and ringmaster to keep the net this time, but the ringmaster fears disappointing the audience and removes it. Although she seems to be struggling to remain conscious, Lola successfully performs her leap. After the show, she sits in a cage, while the male spectators wait in line to kiss her hand for a dollar.

Cast

• Martine Carol as Lola Montez
• Peter Ustinov as the ringmaster
• Anton Walbrook as King Ludwig I of Bavaria
• Henri Guisol as Maurice, Lola's coachman
• Lise Delamare as Mrs. Craigie, Lola's mother
• Paulette Dubost as Josephine, Lola's maid
• Oskar Werner as a Bavarian student
• Ivan Desny as Lieutenant Thomas James, Lola's first husband
• Jean Galland as the elderly baron's private secretary
• Will Quadflieg as Franz Liszt
• Héléna Manson as Lieutenant James' sister
• Germaine Delbat as a stewardess
• Carl Esmond (credited as Willy Eichberger) as Lola's doctor
• Jacques Fayet as the young ship steward
• Friedrich Domin as the circus manager
• Werner Finck as Wisböck, the painter of Lola's portrait
• Elinor von Wallerstein as Queen Therese (uncredited)
• Gustav Waldau as Professor Jeppner, Ludwig's ear doctor (uncredited)
• Margarete Haagen as Anna Jeppner, Professor Jeppner's wife and assistant (uncredited)
• Willy Rösner as the Bavarian prime minister (uncredited)

Production

Lola Montès was planned as a major project that should put the theory of a European film into practice. Therefore, it was shot in French, German, and English. German director Max Ophüls was initially critical of the material, but, after studying the biography of Lola Montez, he began to work on the script, planning to make a black-and-white film.

The production companies expected the film to be a success right from the start, and cast it with top-class actors. Martine Carol, a French sex symbol in the 1950s, was hired in September 1954, and received a fee of around 350,000 marks; Anton Walbrook's fee was 100,000 marks. Since Ophüls wanted the film to revolve around the idea of a circus in which Lola Montez answers questions about her life in front of an audience seated around the ring, the production and distribution departments decided to shoot in color. Although the production company had prepared fixed-time contracts with the actors, the start of filming was delayed because Ophüls only consented to make the film in color after doing extensive tests. He also rewrote the script to incorporate color into the film.

As CinemaScope films were becoming increasingly popular with the public in the mid-1950s, it was also decided that this "prestige project" would be filmed in the then-new recording format. This decision resulted in further changes to the script, which ultimately also meant high costs for contract extensions for the actors involved, some of whom did not experience a single day of filming during their first contract period. Looking back, Peter Ustinov said: "I started to work two days before the contract was over".

The first day of shooting took place in mid-February 1955. The shooting locations included Paris, Nice, Schloss Weißenstein in Pommersfelden, Bamberg, and at Bavaria Studios in Munich.

Since, in return for agreeing to shoot in CinemaScope, Ophüls obtained the assurance that "all technical and artistic resources would be made available to him", the cost of the film rose to unprecedented heights for the time. Paths were artificially coloured to maintain the film's ingenious colour concept; for a shot in which snow was needed, the set was taken to the High Tauern; and costumes had to be reworked when the scene of Ludwig's parade at the Monopteros in the Englischer Garten was switched from winter to summer. For the circus scenes, a permanent circus building was constructed, since the building used by Munich's Circus Krone was not tall enough to accommodate Ophüls' ideas and the Circus Brumbach was already busy with artists and animals. Shooting each scene separately in French, German, and English also increased production costs and shooting time. Despite all of this, Reinegger, the distributor of Union-Film, was able to complete production of Lola Montès thanks to two circumstances: the film had been insured against exceeding the scheduled 82 day shoot due to force majeure, and the Heimatfilm Der Förster vom Silberwald (1954) had recently found success at the box office.

By the time of its premiere, the film had cost 7.2 million marks. In an interview in 1955, Ophüls said:

“Whatever sum you will hear, don't forget to divide it by three. Because basically we are shooting three films, one German, one English and one French, since all three versions are shot one after the other with the original cast. So each of the three films will cost a sum that by no means can be called unusual."

Release

Lola Montès was the last film directed by Ophüls before his death of a heart attack in March 1957. As originally shown in France in 1955, the audience sees the events of Lola Montès' life via flashbacks. Use of the technique was criticized upon its release, and the film did poorly at the box office. In response, the producers re-cut the film and shortened it in favor of a more chronological storyline, against the director's wishes.

According to Roger Ebert, a "savagely butchered version was in circulation for a few years" following Ophüls' death. The film critic Andrew Sarris and others eventually showed improved versions, closer to the original, at the New York Film Festival in 1963 and 1968.

Restoration

Certain elements removed from the film negative by the producers went missing and were believed lost, but their later discovery allowed the film to be re-edited according to Ophüls' original intentions. The re-edit was digitally restored by a small team of restoration artists, including John Healy at Technicolor under the direction of Tom Burton. A black-and-white version of the film was also repaired by Martina Müller and Werner Dütsch.

The restored film was shown at the New York Film Festival from September 26 to October 12, 2008, before being re-released by Rialto Pictures in November. It was screened in its full Cinemascope aspect ratio, and included five minutes of additional footage never before shown in any U.S. release of the film.

Lola Montès was released on DVD and Blu-ray in North America by The Criterion Collection in February 2010.

Legacy

Roger Ebert lauded the film's camerawork and set design, but felt that Carol's "wooden [and] shallow" performance as the titular character prevented the film from achieving greatness. Nonetheless, today it is among Ophüls' most revered works, with Dave Kehr calling it a masterpiece and writing that "certainly this story of a courtesan's life is among the most emotionally plangent, visually ravishing works the cinema has to offer." The film received five votes in the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll, and Danny Peary's 1981 book Cult Movies acclaims it as one of the 100 most-representative examples of the cult film phenomenon.

External links

• Lola Montès at IMDb
• Lola Montès at AllMovie
• Lola Montès at the TCM Movie Database
• Lola Montès at Rotten Tomatoes
• Senses of Cinema essay by Rodney Hill
• Loving Lola an essay by Gary Giddins at the Criterion Collection
• LIFE Magazine (May 23, 1969)