After the film flopped upon release, you can see why the
producers wanted to cut up its flashback order to try to make it more
chronological – which may have made it not unlike other widescreen colour (this
time Eastmancolor) films of the 1950s.
But that would have removed some of director Max Ophuls’ clever/genius
moves, as it is the contrast between the circus framing device (where she is on
display toward the end of her short life, still selling herself to get by,
ordered about by ringmaster Peter Ustinov) and the recalled memories of the
flashbacks (more truthful or more self-deceptive is hard to say) that highlight
the themes of the film. Ophuls has used
the real life story of “Lola Montez” (born Eliza Gilbert) who travelled the
world as a dancer but became famous for her affairs with famous men (Franz
Liszt and the King of Bavaria Ludwig I, both portrayed here, the latter by
Anton Walbrook) and then played them up to commercial success (including a scandalous
tour of Australia in the 1850s and a speaking tour of the US, neither in the
movie, but not a circus). Her life allows Ophuls to consider his longstanding
interest in sex and its social functions along with the power it grants women
who otherwise had little in those days but to take this theme all the way to
its final stop in degradation, shame, and humiliation (but who is really to
blame?). All of this is managed in the
most glamourous of styles with expensive sets and art decoration (perhaps
treating French sex symbol Martine Carol as Lola as just another prop) and
Ophuls’ famous gliding camera.
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