Lola Montès
| Lola Montès | |
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French theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Max Ophüls |
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| Based on | La vie extraordinaire de Lola Montès by Cécil Saint-Laurent |
| Produced by | Albert Caraco |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Christian Matras |
| Edited by | Madeleine Gug |
| Music by | Georges Auric |
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| Budget | US$1,500,000 |
Lola Montès is a 1955 historical romance film, and the last completed film of director Max Ophüls. Based on Cécil Saint-Laurent's novel La vie extraordinaire de Lola Montès, the film depicts the life of Irish dancer and courtesan Lola Montez (1821–1861), portrayed by Martine Carol, and tells the story of her many notorious affairs, most notably 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.
The most expensive European film produced up to its time, Lola Montès underperformed at the box office but had a significant artistic influence on the French New Wave movement and has many distinguished critical admirers. Heavily reedited (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.