Having been fortunate enough to be invited to the recent premiere of the
restored version
of Max Ophüls 1955 classic, Lola Montes, I nonetheless didn't know quite what to
expect.
The restoration itself was a joint venture between the Franco-American Cultural
Fund
which includes the DGA, WGA, MPAA and the SACEM and other organizations such as
Les
Films du Jeudi and the director's son, Marcel Ophüls. So there were a number
of
important industry people on hand at the Directors' Guild Theatre including
Michael Bay
and the newly appointed French Attaché.

A Little Background on Max Ophüls

Any respectable film scholar, a category in which I firmly put mysefl, knows
that Lola
Montes is important in the annals of film history mainly because of its'
fascinating
director. Ophüls, born Max Oppenheimer in Saarbrücken, Germany, was one of
scores of
Jewish filmmakers who were forcibly exiled by the Third Reich. Ophüls left
Germany for
Paris where he remade his first big success, Lorelei. From there he made films
in Italy,
Belgium, his last prewar film being the French De Mayerling à Sarajevo about the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

My knowledge of this director's work was limited to his now most celebrated
films made in
both the U.S. in the 1940s and in Europe in the early 1950s. Ophüls left
Europe for
Hollywood in 1941 but was unable to direct until he got a break from Preston
Sturges. His
two most famous American films Letter from an Unknown Woman with a suffering
Joan
Fontaine and callous Louis Jourdain and Caught with Robert Ryan as a sadistic
millionaire
and Barbara Bel Geddes as his suffering wife, are now acclaimed classics. Yet
at the time,
Ophüls' American career was looked upon as a flop.

It is when he returned to Europe that he directed his most celebrated and
successful films
including La Ronde (1950) a tale of sexual back and forth in turn of the century
Vienna
and packed with a cast of international stars. The film that I'm most familiar
with is The
Earrings of Madame de…(1953) a subtly melodramatic tale of adultery and
deception
starring Charles Boyer, Danielle Darrieux and Vittorio de Sica.

Lola Montes: The Culmination of a Career

Lola Montes was, without intention, Ophüls' swan song, he died just 3 years
after it's
completion. It was his first film in glorious color and was, despite his
mistrust, filmed in
cinemascope. Although the story is based on the real historical figure, Lola
Montes (neé
Elizabeth Gilbert), there was no novel from which the screenplay was drawn.
The film as originally conceived, and as currently restored, tells it's story in
a sort of back
and forth disjointed flashback. The framing device is a circus, presided over
by the
Ringmaster, played with mischievous delight by Peter Ustinov. Lola, played by
Martine
Carol, the sex-kitten of the era, is "re-enacting" her life as a wandering
courtesan. The
films cuts between circus presentations with Lola in various costumes and set
pieces, to
more narrative biographical. Montes was in fact the mistress of Franz Liszt for
a time, and
the 60 year old King Ludwig, here played by the elegant Anton Walbrook.

The film turns out to be both a meditations on the limited choices available to
adventurous
and ambitious women in 19th century Europe. And of course this story of limited
roles is
timeless, a fact which makes it historical and relevent. This rather sad story
of restless,
nomadic wandering is set in a framework that pits the lush romanticism of the
"love story"
flashbacks against the garish melodramatic blowout of the circus scenes,
stuffed
freakishly costumed entertainers.

Not surprisingly,the film was not well received upon release. This has much to
do with it's
non-chronological order and disturbing theme. Despite it's lushness and visual
beauty, it
is not a warm and inviting film. It had a sort of Parisian Rite of Spring
reception with
audiences revolting, some demanding their money back. The critics were not
unanimously pleased either although the ''auteur'' fanatics of the time
including François
Truffaut and later Andrew Sarris celebrated the film.

The film was immediately recut and re-released in a more audience friendly
chronological
order. The 1959 "recut" version premiered in New York. By 1969, a
reconstructed version
finally made it to a commercial U.S. release. The film opened the New York Film
festival a
total of 3 times including this year. It is a film well worth the effort and
celebration and let
us hope it never lapses into obscurity.

Lola Montes will be released theatrically in 2008.

Directed by Max Ophüls; written by Max Ophüls, Annette Wademant and Jacques
Natanson; Director of Photography, Christian Matras; edited by Madeleine Gug;
music by
Georges Auric; produced by Albert Caraco. Released by Rialto Pictures. Running
time:
115 minutes.

With: Martine Carol (Lola Montes); Peter Ustinov (Ringmaster); Anton Walbrook
(Ludwig I,
King of Bavaria) and Oskar Werner (The Student).

By Dianne Brooks.

(c) WriteMovies, 2008