Lola Montès

... she doesn't get it here and it is difficult to know where she WOULD get it. Max Ophuls was one of if not THE most elegant director who ever looked thru a viewfinder whilst conversely Martine Carol was one of the most wooden performers since Laurence Harvey so what we're left with is a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. They were never going to cram all the events of Lola's life into even a four-hour movie, all the more surprising since she was dead at 40 and squeezed all her scandalous living into just over half that time. Ophuls, master of black and white story telling opted for color in what turned out to be his last film and we can only speculate by how far he would have eclipsed say Minelli had he lived. What emerges thru all the truncated and reconstructed versions is little more than a blueprint for a masterpiece manque. 7/10

The 140 min version intended for international release (UK and USA) was never shown; one can only guess of the enormous power it had, considering that even the production cut released in Paris for the world premiere caused public riots and the police intervention.

Max Ophüls considered the German version the director's cut, and we are fortunate that mecenas and technical people worked together to restore to its best color and sound the 110 min version. The director presents the story in a logic, not chronological order, using the voice of an American Ring Master (Peter Ustinov in one of his best characters) to describe the life of Maria Dolores Elisa Regina Gilbert (an actual person, who lived from 1818 to 1861), who brought herself up from a poor childhood, through torrid passions with musicians, painters, revolutionaries and nobility (she was titled Countess of Lansfeld by Ludwig I, King of Bavaria.

I saw once the English dubbed version, cut to 90m long (or rather 87...), and though the acting and drama were there, they were clobbered by enormous technical defaults, poor sound and scratched picture. Now I've seen the restored version, and I was riveted to the film during each of its 110 min. Martine Carol speaking German when needed, but falling back to her French language when passion or anger naturally lead her to, is so nice to hear. Peter Ustinov is at his best in the scene where he tries to convince the daring but reluctant ruined Countess to go with him to North America, to play in a Circus; she refuses the huge amounts he is offering, but he leaves her a cheque anyway, and remarks dryly: "In America all scandals can be sold - Lola!" Later, when he gives the order that will eventually put an end to her career, and life (33 year old, with a tired heart, the doctor says), there rings of death in his trembling voice, as we see, like the gallant Lola up there in the trapeze, the black void.

"Gentlemen and boys over 16, come in now... You can see it all now, all that has not been ever seen in a circus show, inside the tent. It's only one dollar... only one dollar... only one dollar..." And the voice goes on and one, and the crowd gets thicker and thicker; men in black tie, and jobless chums, shoulder to shoulder for only one dollar; and the voice goes on, as the show must go on. Forever there must be more bright colors, blaring trumpets, funny animals, scandalous lives to expose. Was THAT the end?

In the Nineteenth Century, the Irish born dancer Lola Montès (Martine Carol) was the lover of many famous men, including Franz Liszt and the King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who made her Countess of Landsfeld. With a revolutionary movement, she flees from Munich and travels to the United States of America. She is hired by the Circus Master (Peter Ustinov) that tells her scandalous love affairs in every show and she becomes the lead attraction of the circus.

"Lola Montès" is not my favorite Max Ophüls film, but it is certainly his best work of cinematography, costumes and art decoration. The restored DVD highlights these aspects and it recalls Luchino Visconti style. However, the narrative of the life of the most scandalous European woman of the Nineteenth Century is tiresome in many moments. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Lola Montèz"

Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge!" owes something to Lola Montes.

The movie has its moments -- it worked for me as a meditation on the exploitation of love, and the exploitation of despair. Some have commented on the wooden Martine Carol performance, but I thought that was the point. Lola Montes is a blank slate onto whom her admirers project what they want to see. She's vibrant and captivating only to men who want her. And why do they want her? The endless stream of men willing to pay a dollar to kiss her hand -- they want her only because so many other men have wanted her, famous men. It's not about getting a piece of Lola the person, it's about getting a piece of Lola the brand. She's a product (in a cage!) marketed by Ustinov. They have a creepily symbiotic relationship -- the huckster needs his product, and the product needs to be sold.

Before she sells out to Ustinov, Lola lives for love, exploits it for all she's worth, and is exploited for all she's worth. In despair, she turns to Ustinov's show, where she daily and literally recreates her fall from the heights of romance to the tawdry center ring, where her life is exposed to question and ridicule from the cheap seats.

Not a bad flick. I thought the cheesy storytelling techniques -- the flashbacks, the elements of predictability (of course she's going to meet the King of Germany) her "dangerously weak heart" and the concerned doctor -- were ham handed by design, slyly self-mocking. Lola Montes is a movie worth seeing and thinking about.

Max Ophuls' final film, which I viewed in its restored German version, is quite the visual onslaught in widescreen - the extravagant framing device depicting the historic bed-hopper as a circus 'freak' among many, many acrobats and jugglers is the work of someone slaving feverishly to dazzle us. The distanced spectacle sucks us in, and it all looks great, but the toil of the film-making efforts end up deflecting attention from Lola herself - maybe Martine Carol isn't up for the job like everyone says, but more importantly all that metaphor stuff seems to crowd out time she could use to draw us in. The dalliance in the palace through the third act supplies Ophuls' requisite plot disfigurement - everything I've seen except Madame De... has SOME kind of unsatisfying ding in the arc. And the 'sumptuous' color compositions - which are pretty overwhelming in and of themselves, especially when the restoration is working from top sources - seem to limit the opportunities for the big Ophuls Camera Swoops that usually lively things up.