WALTZES FROM VIENNA (1934)

[drednm]

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.

[entredeuxguerres]

The comic scenes are very broad and involve pratfalls into cakes, slapping, falling down stairs, etc. Yet it all seems to work.

Am very much inclined, I'm afraid, to agree with Hitch & Matthews: even my VERY great love of Strauss would make this hard to swallow for me. 'Tis all well & good that the producer wished to make a comedy, but WHY bring the Strauss family into it?

Hollywood made its own Strauss bio-flop, the title of which I choose to forget.

[Mike Gebert]

I can't speak to its quality, but I always figured Hitch hated it and Jamaica Inn because they were both kind of last moments when he had to do the studio's kind of movie before he broke free; WFV is followed by his run of English thrillers, Jamaica Inn by going to Hollywood for Rebecca and all that followed. So it had more to do with the circumstances than the quality of the films in themselves.

[filmnotdigital]

Hitch was quoted in interviews (He tended to say the same thing in various ones) that the reason he disliked this,
Jamaica Inn, and the later Under Capricorn is that he was uncomfortable doing period pictures.

[drednm]

The film isn't a comedy; it has comic relief (which many of Hitch's drama films have). And I have to admit that when we finally get to the "Blue Danube," it's a very fine moment and beautifully shot. And even here, the set is a rather austere bandstand surrounded by tables for customers. The whole thing is done up in white lattice. All very artificial and very striking.
WFV was released in 1934 and quickly followed that same year by The Man Who Knew Too Much.

I think I read somewhere that Jessie Matthews was considered for the young girl part in Young and Innocent, but neither Matthews nor Hitchcock would have any of it.

WFV is not a great film but it's certainly not the "crap" that Hitch called it on several occasions.

[odinthor]

I watched WfV for the first time a couple of months ago, and enjoyed it--not as a compelling drama, hilarious comedy, or richly-scored musical by any means; but it's an amusing (unironically!) show, light and airy, moving along quickly, spiced by the occasional recognizably Hitchcockian camera angles and humor. I can't address its adherence to the truth; but I suspect that Strauss scholars will not be using WfV as source material . . . But that doesn't matter: It's entertaining, and that's what we're looking for.