Lola Montès (Blu-ray)

Lola Montès is a visually ravishing, narratively daring dramatization of the life of the notorious courtesan and showgirl, played by Martine Carol.

With his customary cinematographic flourish and, for the first time, vibrant colour, Max Ophuls charts Montès’s scandalous past through the bombastic ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) of the American circus where she ends up performing. Ophuls’s final film, Lola Montès is at once a magnificent romantic melodrama, a meditation on the lurid fascination with celebrity, and a meticulous, one-of-a-kind movie spectacle.

• High-definition digital restoration with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Audio commentary featuring Max Ophuls scholar Susan White
• “Max Ophuls ou le plaisir de tourner,” a 1965 episode of the French television program Cinéastes de notre temps, featuring interviews with many of Ophuls’s collaborators
• Max by Marcel, a 2009 documentary by Marcel Ophuls about his father and the making of Lola Montès
• Silent footage of actress Martine Carol briefly demonstrating the various glamorous hairstyles in Lola Montès
• Theatrical rerelease trailer from Rialto Pictures
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Gary Giddins