Product Details

• Actors: Martine Carol, Lise Delamare, Germaine Delbat, Ivan Desny, Friedrich Domin
• Format: Color, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: French
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.55:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Criterion
• DVD Release Date: February 16, 2010
• Run Time: 116 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002XUL6QW
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,796 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Lola Mont?s (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

Max Ophüls explores the scandalous life of dancer and courtesan Lola Montes with a bittersweet empathy that turns melodrama into a tragic melancholy masterpiece. Using the theatrical re-creation of Lola's life in a big-top pageant as a framing device, Ophüls contrasts the outrageous sensationalism of her reputation with poignant, poetic flashbacks that explore her many affairs, most notably with Franz Liszt (Will Quadflieg) and King Ludwig of Bavaria (Anton Walbrook). Lola's greatest tragedy is that she loved well, if not too wisely. If Martine Carol's central performance is lacking passion, as many critics have argued, her quiet, at times seemingly passive demeanor makes her a veritable prisoner of her society and her reputation. Swept along by Ophüls's sweeping camerawork, which glides through the film in a balance of intimacy and contemplative remove as if on the wings of angels, her life becomes like a cinematic ballet with Ophüls the choreographer and conductor. Peter Ustinov costars as the jaded circus ringmaster, who nightly narrates her exploits to a throng of scandal-hungry spectators, while she performs with a face hardened in indifference, resigned to her empty role as a figure of spectacle in a garish gilded cage. Shot in delicate color and impeccably composed widescreen compositions throughout by Ophüls's regular cinematographer Christian Matras, Lola Montes is his most beautiful and restrained film, a fitting swan song for one of the cinema's most sensitive directors. --Sean Axmaker

Product Description

Lola Montès is a visually ravishing, narratively daring dramatization of the life of the notorious courtesan and showgirl, played by Martine Carol. With his customary cinematographic flourish and, for the first time, vibrant color, Max Ophuls charts Montès’s scandalous past through the bombastic ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) of the American circus where she ends up performing. Ophuls’s final film, Lola Montès is at once a magnificent romantic melodrama, a meditation on the lurid fascination with celebrity, and a meticulous, one-of-a-kind movie spectacle.

Stills from Lola Montes

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Female Casanova -- or so she appears, November 24, 2003

By 

Doug Anderson (Miami Beach, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Lola Montes (DVD)

Other women in the same time period became famous for their artistic talents(George Sand for one) but Lola Montes had no real talent and so she made her mark by being beautiful and aggressive. These qualities won her many admirers and at least two famous lovers: the King of Bavaria and Franz Liszt. Its a complicated story though and one with many ironies. When Lola was younger her mother wanted to marry her off to a wealthy older banker but Lola refused and instead ran away with a young man who ended up being a drunk and a philanderer. We never really see Lola's transformation from young innocent girl into woman of the world but she makes the transition so completely that nothing of the little girl remains in the woman that Lola Montes becomes. The way Carol Martine plays her we assume that either Lola Montes has no emotions or that she has them but has learned to keep them to herself. Either way it seems what Lola really loves is a man who can take care of her in style and so the real love of her life is not Franz Liszt who she grows bored with but rather the King of Bavaria who sets her up in a little palace of her own which seems perfect for her (an icy palace in an icy land for the icy Lola). Later Lola will refer to this as the happiest period in her life but we are likely to attribute this happiness not to the elderly and deaf King of Bavaria himself but to the palace he provided her with. This was the one time in her life she had a home. When the stability of Bavaria is threatened by revolution she is forced out of her palace. Outside of Bavaria she is destitute and she has nothing to sell -- except her reputation. Though penniless shes now become famous or infamous throughout Europe and so when Ustinov offers her a salary for merely telling her tale she has little choice but to accept. In the 21st Century we are so used to seeing how people capitalize on scandal that its fascinating to see a nineteenth-century version of this phenomena. Its also fascinating to see how Lola Montes must play "Lola Montes". There is a huge difference between what really happened and what the public wants to hear happened and so the story that Ustinov tells each night is just a fiction designed to give the crowd what it wants. Lola herself just goes through the motions of playing this fictive "Lola" to make a buck. In our media savvy era we might have a hard time seeing Lola Montes as a victim, rather we are likely to see her as someone cashing in on her "fame". Lola is ultimately a victim however in the same way Jay Gatsby was a victim -- they are victims of others misperceptions of them. The misperception so often repeated takes on a larger than life reality while the real life is buried in the shadows. This is the tragedy of fame, this is the tragedy of Lola. It is perhaps the most fascinating study of personality of its era. And one that speaks to our era most pointedly.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ironically, Orphuls Manipulates Montes' Image to Condemn the Exploitation of Her Image., March 1, 2010

By 

mirasreviews (McLean, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Lola Montes (The Criterion Collection) (DVD)

"Lola Montes" was German director Max Orphuls' first film in color, first in Cinemascope, and his last film. Due to its terrible reception in Paris in 1955, the film was re-cut twice -once by Orphuls and once by the producers- in attempts to make it more palatable to audiences. It was the most expensive European film ever made when it was released, so it was a notable flop. The first attempt to restore the "Lola Montes" to its original cut was made in 1968 from an incomplete print. The version on Criterion Collection 2010 DVD is a complete restoration, completed under the leadership of La Cinémathèque française in 2008.

This has long been a film appreciated more by filmmakers than by audiences. It appeals either to those who scrutinize its camerawork or who can place it in the context of film history or of Max Orphuls' work. That said, and although the film is technically interesting, I found it quite watchable. "Lola Montes" was the stage name of Elisabeth Rosanna Gilbert, a famed Spanish dancer, courtesan, and mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria in the 1840s. Orphuls reduces her to a circus attraction in middle age, taking impertinent questions from the audience and recreating her scandalous life on stage through absurd tableaux vivants and dangerous stunts.

In fact, Lola Montes was never in a circus, and Orphuls hits the viewer over the head with his condemnation of exploitation and objectification, represented by Lola's (Martine Carol) circus act and its callous ringmaster (Peter Ustinov). I can't help but think this is at least partly responsible for the film's poor reception. As a rule, movies that scold, accuse, or condemn their own audiences are not popular. When Orphuls shames the audience of that circus, they are stand-ins for the film's audience. But the circus is something to see, as we watch Lola's adventures acted out by this bizarre company and in flashback as Lola recalls the events of her life.

Martine Carol was not Max Orphuls' choice for the role, and she is wooden. That's appropriate in the circus scenes, less so in the flashbacks. I think the real Lola Montes must have had more personality, but since this is a film about spectacle, not drama, Carol's limited acting skills don't hinder its ambitions. It takes liberties with Lola Montes biography, but it wasn't intended to be a biopic. Although Orphuls undoubtedly meant for "Lola Montes" to comment on exploitation, it could just as easily be a comment on celebrity, which might be more timely in the 21st century. Lola Montes used celebrity, and it used her. In French and German with optional English subtitles.

The DVDs (Criterion Collection 2010 2-disc set): On Disc 1 are the film and a feature commentary by Max Orphuls scholar Susan White, recorded in 2008. She discusses the film's history, composition, camerawork, making the film, its context in Orphuls oeuvre, and themes. On Disc 2, there is a 1965 episode of the French television program "Cinéastes de notre temps" (53 min) that features some of Orphuls collaborators. "Max by Marcel" (33 min) is a documentary by Marcel Orphuls about his father. There is some footage (1 min) of Martine Carol demonstrating hairstyles from the film. And there is a theatrical trailer for the restored version from Rialto Pictures. Subtitles are available in English.

43 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fox=crafty, sly, or clever person, but..., June 16, 2003

By 

philrob "philrob" (New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lola Montes (DVD)

...Fox-Lorber can be credited with sly only, for releasing this lack of quality even Madacy would be ashamed of.
The 1 star is because of this release. Maybe they don't know yet that DVD technology allow for subtitles as a choice option, and maybe their budget was too short to get them right (one quarter is accurate, one quarter is approximate, one quarter is absolute fancy, and one quarter has escaped translation. But the worse is the (absence of) quality of the picture which is perfectly matched by a botched soundtrack.
Until Criterion or some real professional in DVD business will take care of getting this released as it should be, better to avoid this one.