JohnHowardReid
SYNOPSIS: American salesman attempts to introduce phonographs into Austria.NOTES: Locations in Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies. The film was shot from June through September 1946.
Nominated for prestigious Hollywood awards for Scoring of a Musical Picture (Victor Young) (lost to Easter Parade), and Color Costume Design (lost to Joan of Arc).
Domestic rental gross exceeded $4 million, which made it Paramount's number two (after The Road to Rio) boxoffice attraction of 1947-48. (Or if you want to take the calendar year 1948, the movie still came in second, but this time after The Paleface).
Second to Road to Rio as Paramount's top-grossing Australian release of 1948.
Bing Crosby, Best Actor of 1948 - Photoplay Gold Medal Award.COMMENT: Although some critics might regard this as a minor Billy Wilder exercise, it is in fact every bit as entertaining - perhaps more so - than such highly regarded Wilder comedies as A Foreign Affair and Some Like It Hot. Moreover it is sumptuously set and photographed, ingratiatingly acted, with Bing in fine voice, and Strauss music to boot.
Crosby and Fontaine make particularly engaging principals and are well served by an outstanding support cast led by Richard Haydn, superbly raspy (and excellently made up) as Franz Joseph, and Roland Culver as an opportunistic if blue-blooded wastrel. Nice to see Sig Rumann and Lucile Watson (though we have never been able to spot Doris Dowling). Bert Prival is outstanding in an unexpectedly funny bit as the chauffeur who forsakes his staidness to slide down the banisters.
Wilder's puckishly bizarre sense of humor is always in evidence, leading up to a frighteningly suspenseful climax in which the His Master's Voice pups are rescued from the evil Culver and Rumann. In all, doubtless due to Brackett's influence and contribution, Wilder has balanced the movie particularly well between farce and fantasy, romance and risibility, comic cut-ups and more realistic characterization, songs and suspense. The traditions of musical comedy are integrated with those of the comedy of manners. Both are not only exploited to the full, but gently lampooned.
lugonian
THE EMPEROR WALTZ (Paramount, 1948), directed by Billy Wilder, stars the unlikely pair of Academy Award winners, Bing Crosby (Best Actor of GOING MY WAY (1944) and Joan Fontaine (Best Actress of SUSPICION (1941) for the only time. With the title lifted from the famous Johann Strauss composition, the script, as written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, has its very own direction with a story about an unlikely pairing of a traveling salesman and an aristocratic countess, a sort of theme commonly found in the Depression era 1930s made famous by director, Ernst Lubitsch with such titles as THE LOVE PARADE (1929) starring Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald as a commoner who marries a queen . Even with such an old-fashioned tale carried on into post World War II, THE EMPEROR WALTZ no doubt worked wonders with audiences in 1948, but has become somewhat underrated today.Opening title: "On a December night some forty-odd years ago, His Majesty, Francis Joseph, the first emperor of Austria, apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia and so forth and so forth, was giving a little clambake at his palace in Vienna." Enter Virgil Smith (Bing Crosby), a traveling American salesman, walking through the snow, climbing the vine to the second floor terrace and into the palace of a social ball given by the Emperor Franz Joseph (Richard Haydn). Attracting attention to himself, he heads over towards the Countess Johanna Franziska Von Stultzenberg Stultzenberg (Joan Fontaine) on the dance floor demanding to speak with her. She angrily replies: "Go away. I hate you … I loathe you … I despise you!" At a distance, this union is observed by the middle- aged Princess Bitotska (Lucile Watson), who soon narrates the story to the guests seated around her. The flashback scenario tells of how the two met and what soon occurred to develop into a four month courtship: Virgil, a super salesman from Newark, New Jersey, comes to the Emperor's palace with his dog, Buttons, and a black box consisting of a phonograph recording machine to show the Emperor to introduce to the lives of the people of his country. Also awaiting to see the Emperor are Countess Johanna and her father, Baron Holenia (Roland Culver), a general, the matching of their black poodle with his very own dog in order to produce puppies for the lonely Emperor. After a rough start where Virgil's black box is mistaken for a time bomb, Buttons starts a battle with Johanna's dog. At first the snobbish Johanna of Stultzenberg Stultzenberg Palace on Stultzenberg Stultzenberg Square, wants nothing to do with Virgil nor his animal, but after a visit to Doctor Zwiegback (Sig Rumann), a dog psychiatrist, suggesting that both dogs should get together, not only does love eventually blossoms for both dogs, but for the salesman and the countess as well, until something occurs to cause Johanna to hate Virgil. As the princess finishes her story, more unexpected events occur. Other members of the cast consist of Julia Dean (Archduchess Stephanie); Harold Vermilyea (Chamberlain); and Doris Dowling (The Tyrolean Girl).Filmed in glorious Technicolor, much of the premise is a reminder of those Ernst Lubitch musicals for Paramount which would make one feel that had THE EMPEROR WALTZ been produced around 1932, naturally the envisioned casting might have been altered to Maurice Chevalier (the salesman), Jeanette MacDonald (the countess) and C. Aubrey Smith(The Emperor). Yet something like Rouben Mamoulian's LOVE ME TONIGHT (1932) that featured the trio in that very same musical may have some connection involving a tailor and a princess with an assortment of very fine songs. For THE EMPEROR WALTZ, with Crosby doing a Chevalier trademark by wearing a straw hat, there's limitations to song interludes, something quite unusual for a Bing Crosby movie. Songs include: "Friendly Mountains" (by Johnny Burke); "I Kiss Your Hand, Madame" (sung by Crosby, and danced by chauffeur (Bert Prival) and two barmaids); "I Kiss You Hand, Madame" (reprise); "The Kiss in Your Eyes" and finally Johann Strauss' "The Emperor Waltz" sung by Crosby with new lyrics by Johnny Burke. As beautiful as any Strauss melody can be, the major disappointment is not having "The Emperor Waltz" presented as a major dance sequence participated by cast members in song and dance rather than in brief as presented in the final print.With Joan Fontaine donning period costumes and headdress from early twentieth century, though in her early thirties, appears ten years older, with the exception of one scene where she discovers she's in love through the glitter of her eyes where she appears to look quite youthful. Character actor, Richard Haydn, unrecognizable under white mustache, beard and heavy eye lashes, is satisfactory as the emperor. At 106 minutes, an enjoyable lavish production.Formerly shown on commercial television before shifting to cable such as American Movie Classics (1995-1999), and Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: March 1, 2011); THE EMPEROR WALTZ has become available on both home video and later DVD (with Crosby's A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT (1949) on the flip side for anyone's viewing pleasure of a movie set in merry old Vienna. (***)
Claudio Carvalho
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")
bkoganbing
According to a new book out on Billy Wilder, Wilder had a much different film in mind than what emerged here. He was a contract director for Paramount at the time this was made with a few hits under his belt. And he was assigned to direct this film with Bing Crosby who was the biggest name in movies when this came out. Crosby had a whole different film in mind and what Bing wanted Paramount gave him at that point. Wilder wanted a biting satire on the Franz Joseph court and he also wanted a the killing of the puppies, the offspring of Crosby's and Joan Fontaine's dogs to be an allegory for genocide. Crosby knew what his audiences expected from him and he opted for a lighter treatment.The result was a second rate Billy Wilder movie, but a first class Bing Crosby film. Unlike in the thirties when Paramount just depended on Crosby's personality to put over a film, they gave this one the full A treatment. The outdoor sequences were shot in the Canadian Rockies and they serve as a great Alpine background. Though its muted, Wilder still gets some of his cynical point of view into Crosby's phonograph salesman who woos a member of Viennese royalty played by Joan Fontaine. Roland Culver who is Fontaine's father is also pretty good as the impoverished count who is quite willing to sell his title in marriage to anyone who can afford him.Great vehicle for the winning Crosby personality.
