The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour (243)

Thank you for joining us today

Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with another Merrie Melodies Bugs Bunny cartoon, the 1959 Backwoods Bunny, directed by Robert McKimson.



The first of two appearances by Elvis and Pappy Buzzard. They would later appear in a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon, The Dixie Fryer.


Before the start of our feature presentation, ACME Eagle Hand Soap would like to present (in our opinion) one of the greatest Rick Roll events ever seen - Hallujah - Death Metal Edition featuring Leonard Cohen (Oktoberfest style) -



Before you go, make sure you check out Straight Outta Compton - Oktoberfest Edition

We've picked another fantastic entry from the excellent reference book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Jay Schneider. Today's choice is yet another film by the great European master Max Ophüls - the 1955 romantic drama, Lola Montès, starring Martine Carol, Peter Ustinov, Oskar Werner, and Anton Walbrook. The film was the most expensive movie made in Europe up to that time and unfortunately, did not do well in the box office during its original release. The films complex narrative structure seemed the reason and the studio had the film, shortened and re-edited. Ophüls spent the last three years of his life fighting the studio to restore the film to it's original structure.

As we have seen with other films from this list, while American critics mostly panned the movie, the French New Wave critics championed this film and the director as proof of their politique des auteurs. Andrew Sarris wrote "Lola Montès is in my unhumble opinion the greatest film of all time." He introduced the restoration at the New York Film Festival in 2008. He later decided that the greatest movie of all time is The Earrings of Madame De..., by the same Director, Max Ophüls. The film was restored twice - once in 1968 and again in 2008. We are going to see the 2008 restoration from The Criterion Collection. The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour would like you to join us in watching this film, Lola Montès. So push away from the table, get comfortable and enjoy the film.



Director Max Ophüls surrounded Martine Carol (Lola Montès) with a solid cast, headed by Anton Walbrook as King Ludwig I, Oskar Werner as a student revolutionary, and Peter Ustinov as the Ring Master. He shot this movie in Germany, Austria, and France in three different versions, French, German, and English (Ustinov wrote the English-language dialogue). Then he worked with three different editors, each in his own room, on the three different versions.



Demand Euphoria!