david hare wrote:That's not accurate. There's a long history to Lola which ahs been covered here but it's scattered all over a number of threads. In any case Max originally intended to make Lola as a trilingual film but the producer kyboshed that so he shot a German lanaguage version (with the actors dubbing themselves, including Martine) and a French version again with the actors dubbing themselves. He never shot an English version and the English dub travesty "Sins of Lola Montez" is not Max's work. The other two are substantially the same but with a large number of different takes, and obviously different soundtracks. Both versions have brief scenes in which actors speak in English and/of German or French rather than the native language of that version. The German version is around in boots from an Arte broadcast with subs. And the French version is available with subs from Second sight. Marcel suppressed the German version at least outside Germany as not corresponding to his father's wishes. Brad Stevens post above documents some of the differences betwen the new restoration and the older 60s Beauregard release print which runs a few minutes shorter, is less wide than the full 2.4 Scope and in mono with washed out color.
Are you sure that a English version was never shot?
In 1956 Max Ophüls responded to the accusation by the press that his slow work style was responsible for the enormous budget of 6 Millionen Mark with these words:
„Drehen waren hundert Tage, die man mir kolossal vorwirft, die muss ich immer wieder fressen, alle Leute sagen zu lange usw. und besonders die Industrie wirft das vor, aber dabei ist ein Rechenfehler, [...] eine Legende, die ich zerstören muss, [...] Es muss gesagt sein, dass in diesen hundert Tagen ein Film in drei vollen Versionen entstanden ist, d.h. also eigentlich hat der Film 33 1/3 Tage gedauert. Das ist für mich wahnsinnig schnell.“
A short translation:
Ophüls said that people and mainly the industry accused him for shooting for 100 days. He said, that this was a legend, because he shot three different versions of the movie in 100 days, so that the film took only 33 1/3 days, being very quick for him.
Ophüls speaks of three different versions again:
"Die Hauptschauspieler dieses Films haben tatsächlich drei Sprachen nicht nur gemeistert [...], sondern drei Mentalitäten, in dem sie die drei Versionen des Films hergestellt haben“.
Ophüls said, that the actors not only mastered three different languages but also three different mentalities by shooting three different versions of the film.
Here's a summary of an German speaking article I published in February 2009 on my
website. I culled these infos from an article by Helmut G. Asper (author of the Ophüls biography "
Max Ophüls") about the restoration / reconstruction of the German speaking version (presented in Film-Dienst 16/2002) and from the infos on
Cinematografie des Holocaust:
Ophüls shot „Lola Montès“ in three different versions: In French, German and English with the last one never had a theatrical run. The German and French premiere versions had multilingual sound tracks (partial subtitled). The first French version had its premiere in Paris on 12/22/1955, the first German version on 01/12/1956 in Munich but both versions were not received very well by both the press and the audience. So Ophüls was forced to recut both versions. The foreign language scenes were redubbed, subtitles were removed and the sound track was newly mixed for better understandibility away from Ophüls preferred sound mix with a more naturalistic touch.
The results:
First French version: 3117 meters / 113:56 minutes
Second French version: 3009 meters / 110 minutes (Premiere: 01/20/1956 in Paris)
First German version: 3158 meters / 115:25 minutes
Second German version: 3093 meters / 113:03 minutes (Premiere: 02/09/1956 in Berlin)
On 02/21/1957 a third French version had its premiere in Toulouse with 2510 meters / 91 minutes. This version was shortened and recut to a chronological order.
A third German chronological version had its premiere in Frankfurt/Main on 12/03/1957. This version had a length of 2795 meters / 102 minutes.
The British version was heavily cut to 2468 meters / 90 minutes, the US version to 2080 meters / 75 minutes.
In 1967/1968 the film had re-releases in Germany and France. Presented were the second versions compiled from duplicate negatives. In 1955 CinemaScope had an aspect ratio of 2.55:1 with 4 track magnetic stereo audio. In 1967/1968 the aspect ratio for scope was 2.35:1 with an optical mono audio track. The newly made „Lola Montès“ prints were in 2.35:1 with lost picture informations on the left side.
The Munich Filmmuseum owns the only surviving 4 track magnetic stereo print of the second German version with the original aspect ratio of 2.55:1. The Cinématheque Royale de Belgique owns the French premiere version in 2.55:1. Still available are theatrical prints of the second German and French versions and a duplicate negative of the second French version. Original negative materials survived only for the French and German chronological versions but with good colors.
In 1997 the Munich Filmmuseum began the reconstruction of the German premiere version. Seven different materials with a length of 500 minutes were used. An exact reconstruction of the German premiere version wasn't possible, because the missing scenes from this version are lost. For these blemishes the corresponding scenes from the French premiere version were used. A guide for the reconstrucion was the original shooting script.
The reconstruction and restoration was the first digital one done in Germany. The source materials were scanned in 1920x1080. The audio was taken from the 4 track magnetic stereo, recut, restored and newly mixed to Ophüls intended audio mix. A guide for this new mix was again the French premiere version. From this digital restoration/reconstruction new theatrical prints were created with a Dolby Digital audio track and the original 2.55:1 aspect ratio printed in the 2.39:1 frame of todays anamorphic 35mm prints.
I have not seen the new restoration by Marcel Ophüls. Is it a restoration of the still available French premiere version or was the redubbed second French version used as the main source with the addition of the missing scenes?
