This episode of "Death Valley Days" offers a thumbnail sketch of the life of Lola Montez, the Irish-Spanish entertainer who is seen here scandalizing Europe and taking up with royalty like King Ludwig I of Bavaria and cultural figures like Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and French author Victor Hugo before leaving for the U.S. and winding up married to a newspaper editor in a small gold rush town in California. The editor's jealousy gets the best of him, especially after two men, one a Baron and the other the nephew of Mr. Hugo, follow Lola to Grass Valley. The marriage ends and she's soon back on stage trying to revive her career before eventually winding up in New York working at an asylum under her real name, Eliza Gilbert, where she counsels "fallen women."
It's all done on a very low budget and uses stock footage to show us revolutions in Europe during her time there. I'm guessing the footage comes from European period films since they don't look like Hollywood to me. King Ludwig is played by Gabor Curtiz who happens to be the brother of the great Hollywood director Michael Curtiz (CASABLANCA). Franz Liszt has a scene with Lola and even sits down at the piano to play one of his pieces, but the actor who plays him is not identified in the IMDB cast list.
Lola had been a character in an earlier episode of Death Valley Days, "Lotta Crabtree," where she's seen in California mentoring the title child performer. Lola was played in that episode by Yvonne Cross. Here she's played by Paula Morgan, an actress who only has seven credits and is someone I'm otherwise unfamiliar with. She's not very good in the role. Watching this episode made me realize how great a big-budget biopic of Montez would have been in the 1950s if Ava Gardner had played the part. Alas, that was never to be. A big-budget European film, LOLA MONTES, did appear in 1955, the same year this episode aired on TV, and starred Martine Carol. It was Max Ophuls' last film and it's a bit abstract for my tastes, maintaining a curious distance from its title character throughout. I want a film where the character dominates, not the director's technique. Yvonne De Carlo once played Lola in a 1948 western called BLACK BART and she did her own dancing. I think that may just be the best portrayal of Lola I've yet seen. Rita Moreno played the character in an episode of "Tales of Wells Fargo," but it was for a standard stagecoach-under-attack-by Indians story.
It's all done on a very low budget and uses stock footage to show us revolutions in Europe during her time there. I'm guessing the footage comes from European period films since they don't look like Hollywood to me. King Ludwig is played by Gabor Curtiz who happens to be the brother of the great Hollywood director Michael Curtiz (CASABLANCA). Franz Liszt has a scene with Lola and even sits down at the piano to play one of his pieces, but the actor who plays him is not identified in the IMDB cast list.
Lola had been a character in an earlier episode of Death Valley Days, "Lotta Crabtree," where she's seen in California mentoring the title child performer. Lola was played in that episode by Yvonne Cross. Here she's played by Paula Morgan, an actress who only has seven credits and is someone I'm otherwise unfamiliar with. She's not very good in the role. Watching this episode made me realize how great a big-budget biopic of Montez would have been in the 1950s if Ava Gardner had played the part. Alas, that was never to be. A big-budget European film, LOLA MONTES, did appear in 1955, the same year this episode aired on TV, and starred Martine Carol. It was Max Ophuls' last film and it's a bit abstract for my tastes, maintaining a curious distance from its title character throughout. I want a film where the character dominates, not the director's technique. Yvonne De Carlo once played Lola in a 1948 western called BLACK BART and she did her own dancing. I think that may just be the best portrayal of Lola I've yet seen. Rita Moreno played the character in an episode of "Tales of Wells Fargo," but it was for a standard stagecoach-under-attack-by Indians story.