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Lola Monts 1955 is an epic historical romance film and the last completed film of Germanborn director Max Ophls. It is based on the life of the celebrated Irish dancer and courtesan Lola Montez 18211861, portrayed by Martine Carol, and tells the story of the most famous of her many notorious affairs, those with Franz Liszt and Ludwig I of Bavaria. A French production, 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 Monts flopped at the box office. It had an important artistic influence, however, on the French New Wave cinema movement and continues to have many distinguished critical admirers. Heavily reedited multiple times and shortened after its initial release for commercial reasons, it has been twice restored 1968, 2008. It was released on DVD and Bluray in North America by The Criterion Collection in February 2010.

This would be the last film directed by Ophls before his death of a heart attack in March 1957. As originally shown in France in 1955, the audience sees the events of Lola Monts life through the use of flashbacks. Use of the technique was criticized upon its release and the movie did poorly at the box office. In response, the producers recut the film and shortened it in favor of a more chronological storyline, against the directors wishes.According to Roger Ebert, a savagely butchered version was in circulation for a few years following Ophuls death. The film critic Andrew Sarris and others eventually showed improved versions, progressively closer to the original, at the New York Film Festival in 1963 and 1968. ........

Source: Wikipedia