Waltzes from Vienna

Biography of the Strauss boys set in Vienna in mid 19th century. The stars are Jessie Matthews as Rasi, the daughter of a confectioner, Esmond Knight as Strauss Jr., and Edmun Gwenn as Strauss Sr. Also notable are Fay Compton as the countess, Frank Vosper as the count, and Robert Hale as the confectioner.

What makes this film notable is that the director is Alfred Hitchcock. Alma Reville is listed as one of the writers.

From the opening scene, the film is unusual. The film starts with a closeup of a fire team racing to a fire in a confectioner's shop. The scene is obviously fake because of the background and the fake horses. The actors jostle about and spout wisecracks. At the scene of the fire, we see a madhouse of onlookers and employees. The employees are taking tables and chairs out of the shop and setting them up in the street to avoid losing customers. The confectioner is in a panic as he tries to save a huge wedding cake. Smoke billows from the building but upstairs there is music and singing as Strauss and Rasi go through one of his compositions. The sequence is manic, full of pratfalls and sight gags.

At a dress shop across the street the countess is trying to buy a dress but the models are all watching the fire. When a bumbling fireman carries Rasi down a ladder, she tears her dress off and must run to the dress shop for clothing. She meets the countess who is asking to meet the man playing that piano. Thus begins the triangle.

Almost as a subplot, we get the adversarial relationship between the father and son since the film really focuses on the "love story." Although Hitchcock always thought this film his worst, there is much to enjoy. The pacing is brisk. The dramatic story is lightened by comic episodes. The direction is very fluid (if not florid) like the music, and the music is terrific, especially the climactic "Blue Danube" number.

Also notable are the sets. You would expect very fussy, claustrophobic rooms filled with furniture and ponderous draperies but the sets are mostly spartan, white, softly lit. In one scene the countess sits having coffee in a huge white room before huge curtainless windows. Not what you'd think of for 1850s Vienna.

The acting is uneven, with Matthews and Knight overacting and Gwenn and Compton underacting. The comic scenes are very broad and involve pratfalls into cakes, slapping, falling down stairs, etc. Yet it all seems to work.

Matthews hated this film and Hitchcock. England's premiere musical star of the time doesn't get to dance and only warbles here and there. She definitely takes a backseat to the Strauss music, but she's at her prettiest in this film. Esmond Knight's character reminded me of Marius Goring's manic composer in THE RED SHOES right down to the hair cut. Gwenn, for all his billing, gets less screen time than Matthews, Knight, and even Fay Compton.

Did you know that Alfred Hitchcock made a musical comedy produced by Tom Arnold? Okay, not that Tom Arnold, another one. And, it's not really a musical comedy as it is a light romantic comedy with lots of music. It's also a piece of terrible history gently packaged in situational comedy elements that never takes itself too seriously and walks off stage almost as quickly as it came on. It's unchallenging, slightly amusing, and respectably made.

The story is a highly fictionalized account of the younger Strauss's writing of "The Beautiful Blue Danube", his troubles with his father, and his efforts to explain to his sweetheart that the old woman asking for his time is only interested in his music. All of it feels very slight, the sort of series of problems that could largely be fixed with a simple conversation, especially the mix up between Strauss and Resi, the baker's daughter he's sweethearts with. Any dramatic tension inherent in the situation is undermined by the fact that they could find a solution if they just talked about it, and it's not a situation where the two are afraid of the truth or something. They just don't get around to talking about it.

Another problem I have is with Resi herself. She's a nobody, nearly almost engaged to the son of one of the most famous musicians in Europe, and she has absolutely no time for him to pursue his music. By the end of the movie, she gives the ultimatum that boils down to the music or her. Even by 1934, I imagine this had to have felt tired and contrived.

The one dramatic element that works best is the clash between father and son, though it's underdeveloped and doesn't carry as much as it should. Strauss Senior wants his son to be a follower to him rather than to try and make something new. The Junior runs off into the arms of a Countess who believes in his new way to approach music and supports him emotionally and financially in the arrangement. Father is stuck in his ways and blind to his son's efforts to move on his own way in the same musical streams. The storyline comes to its closing at the story's end when Strauss Junior conducts Senior's orchestra and plays his "Blue Danube" to great fanfare. It takes Senior sometime after the performance to calm down and acknowledge his son's critical and artistic success, but he does.

Now, the movie's light dramatically, but it's primarily a comedy. It does have its moments where it is actually quite amusing, though I'd never call it laugh out loud funny. The scene where Strauss Junior figures out the basics of the piece of music is done in Resi's father's bakery, and it's the sort of simplistic device one expects from something light like this. The sound and rhythm of different actions within the bakery come together melodically in his head to form the beginning of the orchestration and he runs out desperate to get it on paper. It's light, predictable, but amusing. The plot to get Strauss Senior late to his own performance so that Junior can orchestrate instead (done without the knowledge of either Strauss) has some funny moments as Senior becomes exasperated with the time he's losing. The final scene should be funnier that it is, though I do understand the sort of humor it's going for.

Strauss Junior, dejected after his command performance because of his losing of Resi at having played at all, goes home to his second story apartment. There, the Countess finds him and tries to console him, and just as they are about to break through their barriers and become physically intimate (in a 1930s sort of way), the Count comes to the door, beating it down for his wife. The Countess must hide, Strauss must prevent the Count from finding her, and Resi comes along and must take the countess' place. It's surprisingly sloppily filmed, eschewing tight timing for confusion and a lack of clarity.

So, it's not that successful dramatically and not that successful comedically, but it's light (have I used that word enough in this review yet?) and a quick 75 minutes. It's at its best, though, when music is center stage, in particular the premiere "Blue Danube". There's obvious intelligence going into how those sequences are assembled so that the visuals flow with the music. Overall, a mixed bag, but not without its merits.

'Waltzes from Vienna' is Alfred Hitchcock's only musical and he directed this because he didn't have any other projects to choose from, and by that time he was still under the contract with British International Pictures. Although being peculiarity in Hitchcock's filmography 'Waltzes from Vienna' includes quite many Hitchcockian moments, including his usual trademark humor. The story itself is by the numbers affair coupled with few musical numbers, but it is masterfully orchestrated by genius conductor. The film is probably most notable of the use of combining the editing with the flow and rhythm of the music.

Sweet little movie which proves that masterful director can turn quite shallow script into somewhat enjoyable entertainment.

This is a fairly entertaining pre-War cheaply made British musical comedy which sadly fails in a number of ways: it was the 3rd film with Jessie Matthews and Edmund Gwenn, and definitely the least satisfying of them; it was Hitchcock directing a non-thriller with his heart not in it; Hitchcock and Matthews didn't get on, and it showed in his screen treatment of her - Britain's top singing and dancing star at the time; and a ridiculously fictitious plot. Hitch thought it was the worst film he'd ever made and Jessie thought it was "perfectly dreadful".

It was an adaptation of a London musical stage play which apparently ran for over a year: Johann Strauss II played by Esmond Knight wants to be a composer like his father, I (Gwenn), who is arrogantly dismissive of his talents throughout. I'm afraid I won't see Gwenn as Santa quite the same again. II eventually succeeds spectacularly with the help of Countess Fay Compton (was she ever anything but elderly and wistful?) and barmaid girlfriend Matthews - incidentally Robert Hale who played her father was her real-life father-in-law. Jessie was as usual good to look at (personally speaking) but unfortunately didn't really get to sing much, and Hitchcock was excellent as usual but didn't get to show off much. Most people will be disappointed with the latter, but for myself it was with the lack of Jessie's beautiful singing voice in what was after all billed as a musical, and with her name over the title. On the other hand, Hitchcock seemed to be mining the One Hour With You stylistic vein a lot of the time albeit in a cheaper but still pleasant British way, there were some nice sets and of course there was Louis Levy's orchestrations for The Blue Danube to admire when it arrived. The less said about how II was supposed to have composed it here, the better!

It's a pleasant enough 76 minutes for someone like me who isn't a Hitchcock completist, but probably will be a real chore if you are.

In 1933 Hitchcock found himself without a picture to direct and signed on for this unlikely choice of a musical just so he could keep working. That being the case, it probably helps explain why it doesn't seem to have a Hitchcock feel to it or any of the elements you might otherwise expect from the master of suspense. I don't think his heart was really in it. The term musical is a little loosely used as really there are only the Strauss's waltzes for music as there was no money in the budget for any other music. So no one breaks out into song for no reason in this picture. Other than the fact it doesn't seem like a Hitchcock movie, it's a nice little story about the younger Strauss struggling for the respect of his father with a nice bit of romance and jealousy thrown in on the side. The most amusing scene for me was when the younger Strauss was coming up with the music for his waltz at the bakery. I also enjoyed the opening scene of the fire brigade racing to a fire and the "rescue" of the damsel. Apparently there wasn't much of a budget for special effects, because we never actually see the fire. A pleasant enough film, just not very Hitchcockian.

*** (Out of 4)