El vals del emperador

It would be hard to find two consecutive feature films by a director of significance as different from one another as "The Lost Weekend" and "The Emperor Waltz", the former as hysterically hard hitting as anything Hollywood produced in the 'forties, the latter pure schmaltzy escapism. The first and most obvious conclusion is that Billy Wilder, as part of his contract to Paramount, was doing as he was told in producing a piece of box office confectionery. And yet there is no escaping the credits which bill the script as being by Wilder himself and Charles Brackett. So he must have known what he was doing. Superficially it looks and sounds like a nostalgic recreation of Wilder's home country, Austria, during a golden period before the First World War when the only thing to unsettle the court of the Emperor Franz Joseph was the entry of an itinerant American phonograph salesman and his mongrel dog. It is said that it might have been a different film but for the fact that Wilder had to accept Bing Crosby for the leading role and that he had to cater for the audience expectations of one of the most popular stars of the day, hence the odd song, though scarcely enough to make it a musical in the fully accepted sense. There is the odd witty line such as Franz Joseph's remark that were he to shave off his whiskers it would create consternation in changing his image on the country's currency. Apart from this it is hard to find much in the way of Wilder's characteristically cracking dialogue. The parallel romance between Bing and a countess and their dogs Buttons and Sheherazade rather palls after a while but the pretty visuals with the Canadian Rockies substituting for the Austrian Tyrol have some compensations. Bing plays his part with star flair although the same can hardly be said of Joan Fontaine as the countess. Aside from the virtue of a gorgeous hair-do, she acts with a stilted woodenness that is light years away from her work in "Rebecca" and "Jane Eyre". Still there is generally something engaging to catch the eye including one wonderfully kitschy moment when all the lasses from a village where violins are made play their instruments. When Wilder made "The Emperor Waltz" he already had to his credit that immortal film noir "Double Indemnity". 1947/48 must have been a particularly bad period for him as he followed his Austrian romance with easily his worst effort, "A Foreign Affair", a third-rate "Ninotchka" tale set in postwar Berlin with Jean Arthur, an otherwise good actress, hardly a match for Garbo. For all its faults "The Emperor Waltz" is infinitely more enjoyable though there is little indication of the talent that was to produce "Some Like It Hot", "The Apartment" and "Kiss Me, Stupid".

In Austria, the American traveling salesman Virgil Smith (Bing Crosby) arrives in the palace of Emperor Franz-Joseph I (Richard Haydn) with his mongrel dog Button expecting to sell one gramophone to him to promote his sales in the country. However, the guards believe he has a time-bomb and he does not succeed in his intent. When the dog Sheherazade of the widowed Countess Johanna Franziska von Stolzenberg-Stolzenberg (Joan Fontaine) bites Button, Virgil visits her and sooner he falls in love for Johanna and Button for Sheherazade that is promised to breed with the Emperor's dog. When Virgil asks permission to marry Johanna to the Emperor, the nobleman exposes to the salesman that their difference of social classes would doom their marriage and offers a business to Virgil.

"The Emperor Waltz" is a delightful and naive romance of Billy Wilder, with parallel human and canine love stories like the dogs were the alter-egos of their owners. The art direction and the set decoration are amazing, and the scene of the ball is awesome. Joan Fontaine is extremely beautiful and shows a great chemistry with Bing Crosby, but the dog Button steals the movie and is responsible for the funniest moments. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "A Valsa do Imperador" ("The Emperor Waltz")

This is not a great Billy Wilder film, but any film he's involved in is worth looking at. Like Orson Welles, even when he's below par in his work he's ahead of the pack. Here Wilder is going back to his roots - he came from Austria, and just left it before the Nazi seized control (I think two aunts of his died in concentration camps). Wilder knew what the highbound, tradition controlled court and government of Austria Hungary was like, with it's unofficial racism towards Jews and Slavs. Only Hungarians (by force) got equal treatment to the Austrians in the government and army. If Jews did well in the professions or business they were hated for it. Only Erich von Stroheim would have had a similar idea of the truth, but he looked elsewhere at the sordidness of the court - at it's sexual peccadillos.

But the film is not successful in capturing that image. It comes closest when Richard Haydn (as the old Emperor Franz Joseph - possibly his best straight acting job/though his performance as a sadistic nobleman in FOREVER AMBER is close to it)tells Bing Crosby why the marriage between him and Joan Fontaine would fail. Fontaine would soon be pining for those fine aristocratic experiences and events that she would never be able to go back to once she married a commoner. Haydn compares aristocrats to snails - serene and haughty in their little shells, but remove them from their shells and they die. It may be wrong here (the movie ends with Crosby and Fontaine united), but in reality it hasn't always worked. Look at the tradition bound Windsor family and their marriage fiascos.

Oddly enough, just as Wilder failed in his attempt to make a film about the Austro-Hungarian Empire Max Ophuls made the classic Viennese romance of that period - A LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN, starring Fontaine and Louis Jordan. It was not on the scale of THE EMPEROR WALTZ, but it is better remembered and enjoyed, and gave Fontaine a memorably tragic character. If one wants to get a glimmer of the zeitgeist of old Wien see the Ophuls movie. And if not that see a British film starring Lili Palmer, BEWARE OF PITY, which also captures the neurosis of the upper classes in that age. As for THE EMPEROR WALTZ, watch it for Haydn's fine performance, Crosby's singing and comic moments (when he turns a phonograph into a 19th Century berry juicer, which is a lovely little scene), and Roland Culver's social plotting. You'll find these all quite enough to enjoy the movie.

What a nice delightful film this turned out to be. I'm in my musical phase of movies, and while this really cannot be classified as a true "musical", it does have a couple on nice songs and a short dance sequence. I guess you could classify this as a "quasi-musical". Anyway, the story is fun with the typical Billy Wilder political overtones that do not detract from the plot line. The scenery is great, as is Bing Crosby and Richard Haydin. Joan Fontaine is fine in what is asked of her. The real stars are the two dogs. Their scenes are delightful, as is the film. While there is a tad of dramatics at the end, it all turns out fine as expected. Would have like to have the fade-out of the two dogs cuddling up. See this one for a royal treat.

"The Emperor Waltz" is an underrated jewel, a true hidden treasure by the great Billy Wilder. The basic idea of the movie is authentic comic genius, Wilder's trade-mark superb wit: two parallel funny love stories, a canine one, of a dog with a blitch, and a human one, of the straightforward American guy Virgil (Bing Crosby) with the haughty Austrian Countess Johanna Augusta Franziska (Joan Fontaine), the respective masters of the pets.

Virgil is a commercial traveller: his stubborn attempts to sell gramophones to (no less a person than) the Emperor Franz-Josef are irresistibly comic. And then the Countess' blitch is the predestined partner of the Emperor's dog, and so she needs to be treated with extreme care (including sessions of psychoanalysis): all the hopes of the over-noble but impoverished family of the Holena von Shwartzemberg-Shwartzemberg lie in her paws... But it's all too funny to be described: see the movie and enjoy yourself.

The funny, gently mocking reconstruction of the Austrian Court and of its rituals at the beginning of the 20th century is stunning. The delightful subtleties are uncountable: see the gentry play lawn-tennis, and the footmen in white gloves who present the tennis-balls on a silver tray...

All the actors make an excellent job, and there are no words to praise enough Richard Haydn as Emperor Franz-Josef. The cinematography, in bright, cheerful colors, is accurate and evocative. The costumes and the locations are magnificent. The film was intended to be a musical: however, we find in it just a pair of nice songs and a rather short ballet. I consider it a further merit of the movie: I'm not much fond of musicals.

I highly recommend "The Emperor Waltz", a praiseworthy issue of Wilder's magic wit and talent.