Lola Montes

German-born, French by adoption, Viennese by sensibility, Max Ophüls was the ideal choice to film the life of one of the great cosmopolitan femme fatales. Lola Montés, dancer and courtesan extraordinaire, cut a swathe of scandal through Europe in the mid-19th century, becoming mistress of the composer Liszt, of the king of Bavaria, and of plenty more. Ophüls' poignant last film, his only one in colour, is no conventional biopic. Instead, he mounts a sumptuous baroque extravaganza, part circus, part pageant, packed with flashbacks, and sends his restless camera scaling and prowling around the elaborate décor. In the title role, Martine Carol gives a sullen, emotionally glazed performance, but for all her limitations she fits Ophüls' conception. His Lola is simply the passive blank on to which men project their fantasies, and her final destiny as a sideshow attraction, selling kisses for a dollar each, reduces her career to its most brutal logic. Originally running 140 minutes, the 1955 film was butchered by its distributors; this 111-minute version is the fullest that's known to survive. --Philip Kemp