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 in 1916, but he died soon afterwards from injuries sustained during the First World War. Von Losch never officially adopted the Dietrich girls, so Dietrich's surname was never von Losch, as has sometimes been claimed. Dietrich's family nicknamed her "Lena" and "Lene" (). Around age 11, she combined her first two names to form the name "Marlene". Dietrich attended the Auguste-Viktoria Girls' School from 1907 to 1917 and graduated from the Victoria-Luise-Schule (today Goethe-Gymnasium) in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, in 1918. She studied the violin and became interested in theater and poetry as a teenager. A wrist injury curtailed her dreams of becoming