Max Ophuls

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 color, Max Ophuls charts the course of Montès’s scandalous past through the invocations of the bombastic ringmaster (Peter Ustinov) of the American […]

The French writer Guy de Maupassant has inspired many great filmmakers. Among those to adapt his short stories and novels were Jean-Luc Godard, Kenji Mizoguchi, Walerian Borowczyk, Harry Kümel, Luis Buñuel and Christian-Jacque. But it was arguably Max Ophuls, with his 1952 feature, Le Plaisir, who proved to be the most adept. Le Plaisir takes […]

The legendary Max Ophuls (Letter from an Unknown Woman; La Ronde) directs this tense and stylish 1949 film noir melodrama. Joan Bennett (Scarlet Street) stars as a suburban housewife who covers up a murder to protect her teenage daughter, only to find herself blackmailed by an immoral small-time crook, played by James Mason (North by […]