X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Max Ophüls


House of Pleasure

House of Pleasure (film), English title for French film Le Plaisir by director Max Ophüls adapting three stories by Guy de Maupassant (Le Masque, La Maison Tellier and Le Modèle).

Max Ophüls

Initially envisioning an acting career, he started as a stage actor in 1919 and played at the Aachen Theatre from 1921 to 1923.

Many of his films inspired filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, who gave an introduction on the restored DVD of The Earrings of Madame de... (1953).

Rogues' Regiment

Max Ophüls was hoping to direct the film but was passed over in favour of Robert Florey.


Clemens Schmalstich

Among his thirteen feature films were the Erich Waschneck presentations Abel mit der Mundharmonika, Liebesleute (Renate Müller, Gustav Fröhlich, Harry Liedtke), Regine (Luise Ullrich, Anton Walbrook) and „Musik im Blut“ (Sybille Schmitz), as well as the Heinz Rühmann film Lachende Erben by Max Ophüls and the Heinrich George film Ein Volksfeind produced by Hans Steinhoff.

Jacques Laurent

The 1955 film Lola Montès, directed by Max Ophüls, was based on his historic novel based on the life of Lola Montez.

The Lovers of Montparnasse

It was originally directed by Max Ophüls, but he died of rheumatic heart disease while shooting interiors on the film, so his name was credited as dedicatee; his friend Jacques Becker took over after Ophüls's death and completed filming.

Wiener Riesenrad

It also appears in The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson, Max Ophüls' Letter from an Unknown Woman and its Generation X counterpart, Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise, and The Glass Room by Simon Mawer.


see also

Gruschenka Stevens

In 1999, she embodied a singer in Sherry Hormans “Widows“ and an overwhelmed, struggling mother in “Get away from here“ directed by Franziska Buch, which for this film was awarded the Max Ophüls Prize.