The project originated with an idea from UFA producer Erich Pommer and actor Emil Jannings, who wanted to create a major international sensation after Fritz Lang's Metropolis had been a financial disaster for UFA and left the studio in need of a prestige project.
Emil Jannings, who had just returned to Germany after nearly three years in the US and had won the first Best Actor Oscar, insisted that Josef von Sternberg direct his first sound film because of their successful prior collaboration in Hollywood on The Last Command.
Sternberg turned down UFA's proposal to make a film about Grigori Rasputin before settling on adapting Heinrich Mann's 1905 novel Professor Unrat, drastically reworking the story with Mann's consent so that the professor's descent into jealous rage and madness was entirely Sternberg's own invention.
Several actresses were considered for Lola Lola before Marlene Dietrich, including Lucie Mannheim (favored by producer Pommer and Jannings but vetoed by Sternberg as insufficiently glamorous), Trude Hesterberg (Heinrich Mann's own girlfriend), Brigitte Helm, and Käthe Haack, with whom Sternberg and Pommer had even provisionally settled for 25,000 Reichsmarks.
Sternberg first noticed Marlene Dietrich's photo in a casting catalogue, and when he showed it to his assistant, the assistant reportedly joked that her figure was nice but did they not also need a face; Sternberg then saw her perform live in the revue Zwei Krawatten and became convinced he had found his star.
Marlene Dietrich initially doubted herself for the role, worrying she was not photogenic, lacked film talent, and feared her family would disapprove of her playing a prostitute-like character; she was also self-conscious about her nose, which Sternberg solved by having her apply a dark makeup line down the bridge of her nose.
Emil Jannings received a record-setting fee of 200,000 Reichsmarks for the film, while Marlene Dietrich, not yet a star, was paid only 25,000 Reichsmarks; director Sternberg received 40,000 Reichsmarks and Heinrich Mann got 25,000 Reichsmarks for the rights plus a further 10,000 after the US premiere of the English version.
The film was shot simultaneously in German and English versions with the same cast over eleven weeks, from 4 November 1929 to 22 January 1930, at UFA's Neubabelsberg studios, using the newly built soundproof 'Ton-Kreuz' (sound cross) building that housed four modern sound stages.
On set, Emil Jannings grew jealous of the increasing closeness between Sternberg and Dietrich and of the attention she received, reportedly engaging in dramatic outbursts and threatening to quit; he was reportedly furious when Heinrich Mann remarked to him that the film's success would be due chiefly to Dietrich's bare thighs.
UFA owner and industrialist Alfred Hugenberg, unhappy about socialist author Heinrich Mann's association with the project, initially blocked the film's Berlin release before relenting for financial reasons, still suspecting Sternberg had hidden a parody of the German bourgeoisie in the film.
Marlene Dietrich's signature song 'Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuß auf Liebe eingestellt' (known in English as 'Falling in Love Again'), composed by Friedrich Hollaender, became a worldwide hit; Hollaender later fled the Nazi regime to the US and became one of Hollywood's most sought-after film composers.
The film also features the carillon of the Potsdam Garrison Church playing 'Üb' immer Treu und Redlichkeit,' a melody originally composed by Mozart for Papageno's aria in The Magic Flute, whose lyrics symbolized Prussian virtues of fidelity and honesty.
Through the participation of the Weintraub Syncopators, the film is considered the first German feature film to feature a jazz band on screen.
Several scenes, such as the English class and schoolroom set design, were later reused in similar form in the popular 1944 film Die Feuerzangenbowle.
A 1959 American remake titled The Blue Angel was directed by Edward Dmytryk for 20th Century Fox, starring Swedish actress May Britt as Lola Lola and Curd Jürgens as Professor Rath.
