Lola Montes (1955) (nat)

I picked this one out of the earlier movies (breaking my self-imposed chronological order) because I'd read a review about a new book about her (Lola Montez: Her Life and Conquests, James Morton: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n11/wils08_.html) and was interested in the book but can't find the damned thing anywhere.

Anyway, the movie tells Lola's scandalous life story through a series of flashbacks as she reenacts her life in a circus performance. As told in the film, she runs from her cheating husband and has a few affairs on her way up the social ladder to her final conquest of the King of Bavaria, Ludwig I. She gains quite the reputation and the Bavarians revolt (sort-of, they really only throw a few rocks) so she flees. Apparently the only option she has at that point is to join the circus (the offer was made to her years before) which creates a whole show depicting her life. We see her performing the act (which is really quite tame and boring but I guess the (French) 1950s depiction of the 1850s would be) while she is apparently quite ill. They never really tell us what's wrong except that she has a weak heart (uh-oh, might that be a metaphor?) but she's got a cough and we all know what that means in movies in which hoop skirts are worn.

The problems are:
1. she's become a circus show complete with "she'll be in a cage in the menagerie later so you can pay a dollar and kiss her hand"
2. there are strangely red-masked (as in burglar ski masks but red) midgets or children running around in the circus which were just odd
3. what looks like some very obvious blackface for no real reason
4. we have no idea how she gets from escaping Bavaria to the circus and we don't know why she has such an obligation to the circus
5. her character is a little inconsistent (one moment she's seducing a hitchhiker student, the next she's helpless)
6. there are two young girls in the show (depicting a young Lola) who may be her daughters. There is an interaction with the younger one that made me ask the question but the girl never reappears and there is no indication that Lola ever had children (or even another relationship after the king)

Besides those problems with the movie as it stands on its own, it seems to conflict with what I know about the actual woman. I watched the movie, after all, because I wanted to see something about the audacious, scandalous woman but I got a watered down version. Apparently she was the Paris Hilton and Britney Spears (no undies and all) of her day and she got to the top with absolutely no talent for dance (which was her supposed profession) and was not quite pretty (the movie made her beautiful). She pretended to be Spanish (was actually Irish), essentially brought down a king, lectured in the US on slavery (she was all for it) and women's rights (not so much), performed in Australia (sans undies), captured the attentions of many important men who then applauded her dancing as if it were the best thing ever, married at least twice . . . yet none of this is in the movie. Hmpf. Someone needs to make a movie about her now or at least put the damned book in the Barnes and Noble.