Lola Montes (1955)

Editor's Note LOLA MONTES, the last film by Max Ophüls, is one of the most celebrated examples of both wide screen CinemaScope and lush Technicolor in film history. Added to this is Ophüls' usual use of sweeping crane shots and angled tracking shots, making this a beautiful, creative film. It is the story of Lola Montes (Martine Carol), the 19th Century dancer who was famous for her scandalous affairs with everyone from Franz List (Will Quadflieg) to Ludwig, the King of Bavaria (Anton Walbrook). At the end of her career she was the main attraction at a circus in the United States which featured a lavish tableaux of scenes from her life. The ringmaster, played by Peter Ustinov, leads the circus audience through her life, and also cues the cinematic flashbacks. Ophüls had used a similar structure in his adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's play REIGEN in his film LA RONDE. Here, although not in chronological order, the flashbacks span Lola's life, covering everything from her early unhappy marriage to a drunken military officer, who she leaves to embark on a career as a dancer, to a very short affair with a German student played by a young Oskar Werner. Ophüls, with his always-moving camera, gives the story a wonderful sense of historical drama.

	Oskar Werner
	Peter Ustinov
	Anton Walbrook
	Martine Carol
	Annette Wademant - Screenwriter
	Madeleine Gug - Editor
	Ralph Baum - Producer
	Paulette Dubost - Featured
	Will Quadflieg - Featured
	Max Ophuls - Screenwriter
	Yves Saint-Laurent - Costume Designer
	Christian Matras - Director of Photography
	Georges Auric - Composer
	Marcel Ophuls - Assistant Director
	Max Ophuls - Director

Sight and Sound
"...It still looks so modern -- saving that there is no one around any more who can combine such flamboyant spectacle with such fluidity, dexterity, lightness, invention..." 09/01/1978 p.261

Los Angeles Times
"...Ophuls' camera swirls around, catching all the action and coarse pageantry, and the effect is invigorating..." 03/01/1991 p.F20

Chicago Sun-Times
"It is all of a piece from beginning to end: The mood, the music, the remarkably fluid camera movement, the sets, the costumes....The actors are in Ophuls' complete control, an additional element in his examination of the romantic myth." 11/05/2008

Film Comment
"[T]his work of overwhelming visual excess truly soars due to the director's legendarily meticulous and expressive camera movements." 01/01/2010

A.V. Club
"[A] masterpiece....It's in a league with CITIZEN KANE, THE RED SHOES, and other movies that operate on a higher plane of sophistication and creativity than their contemporaries." -- Grade: A 02/17/2010