Lola Montes

Dir. Max Ophüls. 1955. 116 mins. 35mm. With Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbrook. In French with English subtitles. The final film by Max Ophüls presents the real-life story of the scandalous nineteenth-century courtesan Lola Montès as it might have been presented by circus showman P.T. Barnum. In breathtaking CinemaScope and eye-popping color, spectacle competes with moments of tenderness and loss as Montès’s life is replayed as an acrobatic fashion show version of Remembrance of Things Past. Peter Ustinov gives a deadpan performance as the circus master whose zeal for profits may conceal a deeper passion, as he summons up flashbacks of Montès’s affairs with Franz Liszt and the King of Bavaria.