Lola (1961 film) Lola (1961 film) Lola is a 1961 romantic drama film, the debut film directed by Jacques Demy as a tribute to director Max Ophüls, described by Demy as a "musical without music". Anouk Aimée starred in the title role. The film was restored and re-released by Demy's widow, French filmmaker Agnès Varda. The names of the film and title character were inspired by Josef von Sternberg's 1930 film "Der blaue Engel", in which Marlene Dietrich played a burlesque performer named "Lola Lola". "Lola" takes place in the Atlantic coastal city of Nantes, France. A young man, Roland Cassard (Marc Michel,
Marlene Dietrich filmography films directed by Sternberg, including "Dishonored" (1931), "Blonde Venus" (1932), and "Shanghai Express" (1932). Dietrich and Sternberg's last two film collaborations, "The Scarlet Empress" (1934) and "The Devil Is a Woman" (1935)—the most styled of their collaborations—were their least successful at the box office. Her first sound film without Sternberg was 1933's "The Song of Songs", directed by Rouben Mamoulian, although she and Sternberg would later work together another two times. But without Sternberg, Dietrich—along with Fred Astaire, Joan Crawford, Mae West, Greta Garbo, Katharine Hepburn, Dolores del Río and others—was labeled "box office poison" after the movie "Knight Without