The Emperor Waltz

Plot synopsis:
At the turn of the twentieth century, traveling salesman Virgil Smith takes multiple (Bing Crosby) journeys to Vienna, Austria hoping to sell a gramophone to Emperor Franz Joseph, whose purchase of the recent American invention could spur its popularity with the Austrian people. At the same time, Countess Johanna Augusta Franziska von Stoltzenberg-Stolzenberg (Joan Fontaine) and her father, Baron Holenia, are celebrating the fact their black poodle Scheherezade has been selected to mate with the emperor's poodle. As they depart from the palace, they meet Virgil and his white fox terrier Buttons, whose scuffle with Scheherezade leads to a discussion about class distinctions.
When Scheherezade experiences a nervous breakdown, she is treated by veterinarian Dr. Zwieback, who practices Freudian psychology, and he advises Johanna to force her dog to face Buttons in order to dissipate her fear. When the dogs are reunited, romantic sparks begin to fly between not only the animals but their owners as well. They begin to spend a great deal of time together, during which Scheherezade and the salesman's dog mate, unbeknownst to their owners.
Virgil eventually convinces Johanna true love can overcome their social differences, and he asks the emperor for her hand in marriage. This is the crucial scene in the picture, and brings the otherwise lightweight movie plot to a higher level. The Emperor is cordial and fatherly with Virgil, and treats him with respect and even a bit of admiration. But he is certain Johanna could never be happy living in Newark, New Jersey. "We are not better than you," explains the Emperor sadly, "I think perhaps you are better than us. But we are like snails: If you take us out of our majestic shells, we die."
Finally, the Emperor tells Virgil of the disastrous end to several similar matches he has seen in his long life, and makes him an offer: He will endorse the gramophone—which will lead to enormous sales and profits for Virgil—only if he breaks up with Johanna. Virgil refuses, highly insulted, but the Emperor asks him one more question: Are you sure you will be enough for her?
The question strikes home, and Virgil decides he loves Johanna too much to take a chance on ruining her life. He lies to her, saying he used her only in order to gain access to the emperor to sell his wares, and walks out apparently uncaring, making himself the villain.
Several months later when Scheherezade gives birth to a litter of white puppies with black patches, it is obvious they were sired by Buttons and not, as everyone thought, by the Emperor's poodle. Fearing the Emperor's reaction, Baron Holenia tells the Emperor they were stillborn, and secretly orders them drowned. However, Virgil, who has sneaked into the palace to see Johanna one last time and set the record straight before he leaves for America, rescues the puppies and confronts the Emperor, who he thinks has ordered the drowning. The Emperor demands an explanation from Holenia, chastises him severely, and asks Virgil to give him the puppies.
But Virgil is still furious, and continues to berate the Emperor about class snobbery which he sees as the reason Holenia tried to drown the pups. He is so angry that he forgets Johanna is standing there listening and tells the Emperor he never should have agreed to give up Johanna to save her from a commoner's life with him. Johanna realises what Virgil has done and forgives him, and tells the Emperor that better she take one chance in a million of a happy life with Virgil, than no chance at all with someone she cannot love. The Emperor agrees to let Virgil and Johanna wed.

Tags: flashback

Review:
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.
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..
"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.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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.
When Wilder made "The Emperor Waltz" he already had to his credit that immortal film noir "Double Indemnity".
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"..
Billy Wilder had never forgotten his native country and Bing Crosby could have been the director himself using a time machine to visit Frances -Josef.An old old emperor soon to plunge his country into WW1.An old emperor who had lost his wife (the famous Sissi)and his only son (it's no coincidence if in "Sunset Blvd" Von Stroheim -who claimed to be the son of one of the empress's lady in waiting- was called MAX -name of the emperor's brother,killed by the Mexicans - VON MAYERLING -the place where the Kronprinz died.)But "Waltz" is the only work by the great director which takes place in Austria;a chocolate box Austria ,not very different from that depicted by Ernest Marischka' s "Sissi saga" (aka "forever my love" )complete with yodeling and Tirolians in their folk costumes .In several respects ,it is a "political movie" :American is the land of democracy where there are supposedly no more classes ,and where a prince can marry a shepherd girl;it's the land of progress which provides the archaic Austria with gramophones .(One should notice that the emperor was already using a phonograph before 1898,for her wife bought "rollers" for him on the eve of her death);it's the land where you can call an emperor "the old boy" ;when his work became subtler,Wilder 's bite did not spare the Americans (see" one two three" or "Avanti") "Waltz" is twice a love story:love between an American who makes 25 dollars a week and a chic countess;between two dogs ,a mongrel and a lady dog with a pedigree (some kind of "Lady and the tramp" so to speak) Frances -Josef may seem reluctant but at the time he had already seen worse;his nephew ,Francis Ferdinand ,the new Kronprinz ,had married an obscure countess Sophie Chotek,and one of his sisters-in-law was an actress !.
There are few writer/directors I admire more than Billy Wilder and few entertainers I enjoy more than Bing Crosby.
Initial disappointment was erased on a recent viewing.Our story is set in the long ago Austria of Emperor Franz Josef and concerns the love affair between a haughty widowed countess (Joan Fontaine) and a brash American salesman (Crosby).
In the enchanting "The Kiss in Your Eyes", there is no need to ask as an entire village puts bow to string to accompany this most stirring of love songs.The Technicolor filming is sumptuous and truly befitting the operetta-like sensibility of the movie.Joan Fontaine is every inch the royal lady, looking lovely in her costumes and easily handling the comic and dramatic portions of the script.
A nice transition from her young, vulnerable characterizations to the more confident females she portrayed in the 50s.Early in the film Bing Crosby tends to shout his way through Virgil, but his character is a lone fish out of water with no kibitzing pal such as a Hope or Fitzgerald.
Once he starts to sing - well, like the Countess, it is easy to fall for the go-getting salesman.Lucile Watson is a delight as a dowager princess with a penchant for storytelling and for our Countess' profligate father played in fine style by Roland Culver.The top performance comes from Richard Hadyn as Emperor F-J himself.
Personally I don't care to look for faults but just come to sit and appreciate the movie for what it has to offer, which is light entertainment with a happy ending -- a time of simple enjoyment..
After having read all the negative reviews and the complaints about Crosby wrecking Wilder's original intention with the film, I was quite amazed to discover that I liked this film a lot.
And near the end, Crosby is absolutely horrid to Joan Fontaine (cruel to be kind, but he still takes it to extremes) in a cynical way which just smacks of Wilder's black-heartedness.
Crosby's character in this film is also somewhat different from his usual persona: not laid-back, but a pushy, brash, fast-talking salesman (Hope or Cagney might have suited the story even better).
The film is also a sort of a parody of the musical: Crosby's yodelling song is full of yodel jokes, and during THE number of the film (I kiss your hand in dreams madame), a chamber-maid, Fontaine's goofy chauffeur and the middle-aged pudgy 'receptionist' of the inn at which Mr. C is staying launch into a wonderfully silly (deliberately so) ballet routine clearly intended as a stab at the conventions of the genre.
The last part of the film becomes less amusing, and the puppy finale drags a bit, though the final confrontation with Franz Joseph (a great Richard Haydn) makes up for the lull.
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.
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.
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.
The film mayn't be a personal favourite or a masterpiece, and there has been better from all involved- for example it is one of Billy Wilder's weakest films that I've seen but that is not knocking it at all, just that his best films are some of the best ever made- but The Emperor Waltz is still a lovely and very enjoyable film.
The script at its best is uproariously funny with Wilder's style definitely coming through, helped by the great comic delivery, and there is also room for some genuinely sweet moments without falling into schmaltz as well as some biting but often gentle cynicism with the portrayal of the Austrian court while keeping in good taste still.
Particularly good are the dog Buttons, who bags some of the film's funniest moments as well as its sweetest, and an unrecognisable Richard Haydn, sometimes his character is irritating but Haydn is also hilarious and thoughtful too.
Joan Fontaine is subtle and touching, the rest of the supporting cast turn in good work and while Crosby does go overboard at times he takes a light-hearted and suave approach in others which is most endearing and he characteristically sings magnificently.
"The Emperor Waltz" is a surprisingly lightweight film considering it was directed by Billy Wilder.
And, while he also made some great comedies (such as "Some Like it Hot"), "The Emperor Waltz" is surprisingly lightweight--particularly since Wilder's Oscars came just a few years before this film.
You'd have thought he would have merited a more prestigious project.Bing Crosby stars as Virgil Smith--a traveling salesman who is trying to make a sale to Emperor Franz Josef of the Austria-Hungarian Empire!!!
This is utterly ridiculous and you just have to turn off your brain to enjoy much of the film--such as the notion of his falling in love with a Countess, the Emperor and Virgil having an informal conversation as well as a dog that is receiving psychotherapy!
Yes, it's all very silly and Joan Fontaine and Bing Crosby do make a hilariously mismatched couple.
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.
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.
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.
In the original it's the Berlin industrialist Giesecke, in the movie it's Bing Crosby as the American salesman.
But, as Richard Norton pointed out in his essay on the career of WHITE HORSE INN in the English speaking world, Warner Brothers bought the rights for a film version of the operetta and thought of casting Al Jolson, Maurice Chevalier, Eddie Cantor or Jack Okie in the movie.
Just imagine what a movie it would/could have been with Bing Crosby as the suave lead, and with Billy Wilder directing.
Even though I'm a cat person, I was completely sucked in by the charm of the canine love story in The Emperor Waltz.
Bing Crosby tries to woo Joan Fontaine, but since she's a countess and he's a traveling salesman, she rebuffs him.
This is a perfectly typical Bing Crosby movie, so if you've never seen him in something and you don't like Bob Hope, rent this one over the weekend.
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).
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.
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.
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.
The Emperor's (Richard Haydn) dog is betrothed to Johanna's (Joan Fontaine) dog.
However, when Virgil (Bing Crosby) arrives in town to sell a gramaphone record player to the Emperor, his dog is attacked by Johanna's dog.
If she's not careful Joan Fontaine is likely to wind up on the wrong end of a Trivial Pursuit question: Which non-singing, non-dancing actress still managed to co-star with a leading singer and THE dancer of the twentieth century.
Although they were at the same studio, Paramount, Crosby was serenely unaware that Wilder was in the middle of a hitting streak and had just turned out four smashes - The Major And The Minor, Five Graves To Cairo, Double Indemnity and The Lost Weekend - in a row and collected Best Screenplay, Best Director, Best Picture Oscars for the last one, because he showed up with his own team of writers headed by Barney Dean (yeah, you heard; Barney Dean to re-write Billy Wilder)and would hand new pages to Wilder each day saying 'here's what we'll be shooting today' or 'I'll be playing golf, let me know'.
No Wilder film could ever be all bad and his barbed reference to genocide remains with Crosby saving a mongrel litter from Sig Ruman's 'doctor' and confronting Franz-Joseph with a speech about the mongrels not being 'pure' enough to be allowed to live.
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.
THE EMPEROR WALTZ can be best viewed today as director Billy Wilder's attempt to explain why such a schnitzel-loving country as Austria could be drafted onto the losing side of not one but TWO world wars against the Allies last century.This story begins with an American salesman (Bing Crosby) going over to a backward European country which has barely heard of electricity and light bulbs, even though they'd been around more than three decades at the time this docudrama takes place.