Lola Montes

Starring:Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov, Anton Walbrook, Henri Guisol, Lise Delamare, Paulette Dubost, Oskar Werner, Jean Galland, Will Quadflieg, HÃ©lÃ©na Manson, Germaine Delbat, Carl Esmond, Jacques Fayet, Friedrich Domin, Werner Finck, Ivan Desny, Jacqueline Canterelle, HÃ©lÃ¨ne Iawkoff, LÃ©on PaulÃ©on, Walter Kiaulehn
Director: Max OphÃ¼ls
Studio: Fox Lorber
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com essential video

Max Ophüls explores the scandalous life of dancer and courtesan Lola Montes with a bittersweet empathy that turns melodrama into a tragic melancholy masterpiece. Using the theatrical re-creation of Lola's life in a big-top pageant as a framing device, Ophüls contrasts the outrageous sensationalism of her reputation with poignant, poetic flashbacks that explore her many affairs, most notably with Franz Liszt (Will Quadflieg) and King Ludwig of Bavaria (Anton Walbrook). Lola's greatest tragedy is that she loved well, if not too wisely. If Martine Carol's central performance is lacking passion, as many critics have argued, her quiet, at times seemingly passive demeanor makes her a veritable prisoner of her society and her reputation. Swept along by Ophüls's sweeping camerawork, which glides through the film in a balance of intimacy and contemplative remove as if on the wings of angels, her life becomes like a cinematic ballet with Ophüls the choreographer and conductor. Peter Ustinov costars as the jaded circus ringmaster, who nightly narrates her exploits to a throng of scandal-hungry spectators, while she performs with a face hardened in indifference, resigned to her empty role as a figure of spectacle in a garish gilded cage. Shot in delicate color and impeccably composed widescreen compositions throughout by Ophüls's regular cinematographer Christian Matras, Lola Montes is his most beautiful and restrained film, a fitting swan song for one of the cinema's most sensitive directors. --Sean Axmaker

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La Guarida del Buitre
Starring: Antonio Aguilar , Ángel Infante , Sara Montes , Joaquin "Borolas" Garcia , and Lola Casanova
Manufacturer: Laguna Films
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0007QJ1L6
Release Date: 2005-03-22

Average customer rating:

Worth Watching Even In Truncated Form
A bland movie that loosely follows the book
Competent film version of the Pulitzer Prize winning novella
meaningful film
Possibly the worst adaptation ever made of a great novel!

The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Starring: Lynn Bari , Akim Tamiroff , Francis Lederer , Alla Nazimova , and Louis Calhern
Director: Rowland V. Lee
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
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The Bridge of San Luis Rey
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ASIN: 6305339783
Release Date: 1999-04-06

Amazon.com

Five people die when a rope bridge collapses in Peru. A local priest, perplexed why God chose these five to die, goes to town to investigate who the five were. Because the film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Thornton Wilder, it's easy to assume that some very existential questions, and maybe some answers, will be forthcoming. Nope. What the good priest does find is the hothouse Micaela (Lynn Bari), a stage actress and partial bad girl, who is wooed by a sailor, a theater gadfly, and the local viceroy. This leads to court intrigue, some incongruous song and dance numbers, and a trip to that fateful bridge. When the old bridge does snap and we know who is lying at the bottom of that Peruvian ravine, it's fair to wonder if the local priest didn't waste his time asking about the wrong people or whether it's just been a waste of time altogether. --Keith Simanton

Description

Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Thornton Wilder, "The Bridge of San Luis Rey" tells the story of a rickety bridge that has spanned a deep gorge for ages. When the bridge suddenly collapses--plunging five people to their deaths--the tragedy causes a wave of superstition to engulf the villagers as they believe they are destined for continued misfortune. Only a priest can find the connections to divine intervention that will quell the townspeople's fears.

Customer Reviews:

Worth Watching Even In Truncated Form.......2005-05-16

Rowland V. Lee screwed up many motion pictures but this isn't one of them. How often do you see the screen legends Akim Tamiroff and Nazimova together in one film? At the very end of her long, illustrious career, Nazimova girded her loins and lent her indelible presence to a final bunch of films (after what amounted to a blacklist on account of her wayward sexuality). THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY is one of her better projects and its decadent sensibility is a good match for the cagaries of her screen image. As he did his later novel, THE EIGHTH DAY, Thornton Wilder used the apparently simple story of five people meeting by accident and dying together to ask some thought-provoking questions about fate and chance. Why do we do the things we do? Are we moved by some higher (or lower) purpose? Is destiny irreversible? If we all meet the same death, what is the sense in leading a good life? Do individual lives have any meaning? Wilder's themes spoke to a wartime audience as few other authors. (His play OUR TOWN was the most performed American play during World War II.)

Lynn Bari is just as lovely here as she was in HELLO, FRISCO, HELLO. I never could understand why she never became a bigger star! Now we remember her only vaguely as the woman who married Sid Luft before Judy Garland did. In THE BRIDGE ON SAN LUIS REY she has what amounts to the leading part, and she acquits herself admirably, her Spanish accent soft but convincing. Watch for Abner Biberman in a small part. Biberman's name doesn't mean much now as an actor, but after the actual, McCarthy inspired blacklist, he rose to the occasion and directed the notorious SALT OF THE EARTH, one of the few independent pictures of the early 1950s worth watching today.

This DVD edition is nothing to write home about; it has long been rumored that more of Wilder's novel was actually filmed, then cut to keep the movie under a trim 90 minutes. But lovers of the novel have never felt Lee's film version to be an adequate representation of the rich character development of the book.

A bland movie that loosely follows the book.......2004-03-15

In 1774 Peru, five people are crossing the hundred-year-old bridge of San Luis Rey when it suddenly collapses, plunging the five to their deaths. Witness to this startling event is Brother Juniper who decides to find out why God has chosen those particular five people to bring into His realm. He travels to Lima to meet with Uncle Pio, a local character who knows everyone and everything surrounding Lima. From Pio, Brother Juniper learns how the lives of the five were connected to one another.

Sort of. The movie focuses on only four of the characters, and three of them in a very secondary sort of way. The fifth character, an old man who was transporting grain, is mentioned only in passing. To me that was disappointing, after having read the book, because each of the characters has his or her own unique story which connects with the others. The acting is very wooden, with too many varying accents and some with no accents at all, so it's difficult to believe the film takes place in Peru. (The Spanish viceroy looks and talks decidedly British, whereas Micaela has an American accent, and Uncle Pio sounds Russian when he speaks.)

The one good aspect from this film is the score by Dimitri Tiomkin, which was nominated for an Academy Award. However, even that gets marred by the poor sound quality of this DVD transfer. It fades in and out too much, and at times, I could not hear what was being said.

See this movie if you must, but the book is better.

Competent film version of the Pulitzer Prize winning novella.......2003-10-21

This is the second of three film versions of the Pulitzer Prize winning novella (134 pages do not a novel make!). The third version is in post-production as we write. Neither of the first two were anything beyond potboiler status, and took liberties with the narrative. I am writing here to correct the negative review on this page from a person in Medford, Oregon. He or she is entitled to his or her opinion, but is not entitled to erroneous information. The 1929 film was nominated for only one Oscar (Art Direction) and won. There was no second nomination involved, let alone a second win.

meaningful film.......2003-06-02

When I was growing up, this was the first movie other than superficial entertainment that I ever saw. I was so impressed with all the moral implications and human emotions, that I never forgot it ! Seeing it again, after all these years, I found itevery bit as gripping, and the D V D made it even more enjoyable. Of special note is the acting of a great actor, Francis Lederer.

Possibly the worst adaptation ever made of a great novel!.......2000-09-01

This truly awful movie uses Thornton Wilder's name over the title so you will believe the story that unfolds is Wilder's. Not so! The film bears virtually no resemblance to the novel. Characters are changed beyond recognition, and the story line of the movie might as well have come from some potboiler written by a hack writer (and I'm certain some hack screenwriter wrote the film!). All the great ideas Wilder brilliantly dramatized in the novel have been jettisoned for lurid melodrama badly acted by an almost totally forgettable cast. That this travesty of a film should be released in any format when far more deserving films are left begging shows that someone isn't using their noodle. The first film of this great book was done in 1929 and won two of the first technical Oscars. That film (from MGM) is now unfortunately obsolete. This DVD version not only deserves no awards whatsoever, but should be made instantly obsolete. Don't even bother to rent this movie. Read the book instead.

Le Plaisir [Non-US Format, PAL, Region 2, Import]

Average customer rating:

Max Ophuls' marvelous film of pleasure and, perhaps, love

Le Plaisir [Non-US Format, PAL, Region 2, Import]
Director: Max Ophüls
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

The Reckless Moment [Non-US Format, PAL, Region 2, Import]
Madame De... [PAL, Region 2, Import]

Product Features:

DVD Features:
Documentary Featurette 'Les Chemins Du Plaisir'
Photographic Short Story 'Moments From Le Plaisir'
Featurette 'From Script To Screen'
Introduction by Film Director Todd Haynes

ASIN: B000NDLY0O

Product Description

The works of Guy de Maupassant have likely been adapted by more French filmmakers than those of any other author (with the possible exception of Georges Simenon). Max Ophuls harnesses three Maupassant short stories to suit his artistic purposes in Le Plaisir (House of Pleasure). In "The Mask," an aging lothario (Jean Galland) learns more about himself than he cares to when he dons a mask to cover his wrinkles. In "The House of Madame Tellier," the proprietress of a brothel (Madeline Renaud) closes up shop one day for an unusual (for her) personal mission. And in "The Model," both the title character (Simone Simon) and her artist-lover (Daniel Gelin) pay the price for her romantic impulsiveness. Each of the playlets in Le Plaisir explore conflicting sides of human nature a theme common to both the works of Maupassant and the films of Ophuls. ----------------Special Features: Documentary Featurette 'Les Chemins Du Plaisir', Photographic Short Story 'Moments From Le Plaisir', Featurette 'From Script To Screen' , Introduction by Film Director Todd Haynes.

Customer Reviews:

Max Ophuls' marvelous film of pleasure and, perhaps, love.......2007-04-12

The screen is pitch black and we hear a voice..."I'm so happy to be talking in the dark as if I were beside you, and maybe I am." The speaker is Guy de Maupassant (voiced by Jean Marais), and Le Plaisir is three of his stories filmed by the great director Max Ophuls. The connecting thread? That pleasure, or even love, lies in how people intermingle their lives, with a shrug, assumptions, an apology, a thank you. Le Plaisir is not so much a sophisticated film of attraction and hope as it is a film of rueful wisdom. It's best to keep in mind while watching this movie that while life can be enjoyed, there are times when hope can disappear.

The three stories consist of, first, La Masque. We are in 19th Century Paris at the Palais de la Dance, where great, swirling balls are held. This is a place where young women hope to find pleasure and rich men; where old women chase memories and young suitors; where prostitutes and their pimps gather, where the men are young bucks and old goats, where "rough cotton to the finest cambric" can combine. One slender man in full dinner dress rushes into the palace and begins to dance with a beautiful young woman. He prances and kicks, yet his face is like a frozen mask of youth. He collapses on the dance floor and a doctor is called. When the doctor loosens the man's clothes, he finds...well, let's say that when the man is delivered home to his wife by the doctor, she tells him a story of the battle between pleasure and love.

In La Maison Tellier, we learn all about a cozy, friendly and long established brothel in a small town on the Channel coast. The bourgeois men of the town are as well-known there as they are to their wives. Then Madame decides to close her establishment for a night so that she and her girls can travel into the countryside to attend her niece's first communion. They have one or two adventures on the train. In the small village they spend the night with Madame's brother and meet the young girl. They attend the communion in the village church. They collect flowers on the way back, and are met with genuine affection and with great gaiety when Madame reopens her place of business the following night. We witness a touching story, as de Maupassant tells us, when pleasure and purity come together.

Le Modele gives us a story where pleasure struggles with moral decay, where "happiness is not a joyful thing." We witness a painter and his model meet, rapturously embrace lust and, as lust tires, recrimination grows. The love which endures as the story plays out may not be most people's idea of happiness.

This is a marvelously told series of stories. La Masque and Le Modele are relatively short bookends to the major tale of La Maison Tellier. With this one, it would be difficult not to become delighted and engaged with Madame and her girls and her brother. Even the puffed up townsmen are not without a sympathetic side; which man among us wouldn't mind being flattered, even for a price, by Madame's girls?

In the cast are some of France's best known actors, including Claude Dauphin, Danielle Darrieux, Jean Gabin, Daniel Gelin, Simon Simon, Madeleine Renaud and Pierre Brasseur. The Region Two DVD has a fine black-and-white transfer as well as several excellent extras, the best being an hour-long documentary titled "A Journey Through Le Plaisir: On the Trail of Max Ophuls." A special note should be made of the English subtitles. They are among the best I've ever encountered. I don't read French, but they seem to capture what I imagine is the rueful, humane and amusing tone of the original.

The Reckless Moment [Non-US Format, PAL, Region 2, Import]

Average customer rating:

The Reckless Moment [Non-US Format, PAL, Region 2, Import]
Director: Max Ophüls
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Madame De... [PAL, Region 2, Import]
Le Plaisir [Non-US Format, PAL, Region 2, Import]
Ace in the Hole - Criterion Collection
Lola Montes

Product Features:

DVD Features:
Introduction by Film Director Todd Haynes
Commentary by Lutz Bacher

ASIN: B000NDP6IU

Product Description

A blend of melodrama and film noir, The Reckless Moment stars Joan Bennett as Lucia Harper, a suburban housewife whose husband is away on business. Her daughter, Bea (Geraldine Brooks), an aspiring artist, has fallen for Ted Darby (Shepperd Strudwick), a shady older man from Los Angeles who claims to be an ex-art dealer. One night, after a secret rendezvous in the Harpers' boathouse that turns into an argument, Bea accidentally kills Darby. When Lucia discovers his body in the morning, she panics and dumps it in the lagoon instead of contacting the police, who would surely charge her daughter with murder. Her problems only increase when a suave Irish gangster named Donnelly (James Mason) shows up with a package of love letters from Bea to Darby, and blackmail on his mind. With her husband out of town, Lucia has no choice but to give in to his demands, and brings him along on a desperate quest to raise the money that takes them from bank to loan office to pawn shop. Along the way, Donnelly seems to develop sympathy even affection for her. When his boss shows up to pressure him into finishing the job, Donnelly's surprising decision sets up the film's startling climax.

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