1938 - THE GREAT WALTZ, you have to see it to believe it.

MGM who made their money with middle brow musicals, dramas, and comedies would occasionally decide that what the movie going public wanted was high brow classical entertainment.  The Great Waltz certainly fits this description.  It's an indescribable musical drama about the life of Johann Strauss II a composer known as "The Waltz King."  One quick look at his Wikipedia page shows that not one scene in this film dramatizes the life of Strauss.  In MGM's favor they do announce with a title card at the beginning of the film that this will not be based on the life of Strauss.

MGM spared no expense making this film, the sets are elaborate, the writers are some of the best, the cinematography is at a high caliber.  Oscar Hammerstein of Rogers and Hammerstein fame was hired to add lyrics to the Strauss compositions like they needed lyrics.  Film composer Dimitri Tiomkin rearranged the Strauss waltzes like that needed to be done as well.  The director was Julien Duvivier one of the masters of French cinema.  Duvivier was a man of intelligence and taste so it's rather amazing to see him involved in something like.  The production was so big that Victor Fleming and Josef von Sternberg filmed scenes for the movie although they are uncredited.

 

In order to give the film some class MGM hired a couple of European actors Fernand Gravet and most importantly Miliza Korjus a soprano from Poland.  Since no one could pronounce Korjus name the MGM publicity department hilariously trumped in their advertising that Korjus rhymed with "gorgeous."  Korjus sings and sings and sings thrilling her way through one Strauss composition after another, it's exhausting.

 

For all the silliness of this film and it is a very silly love triangle story,  there is a certain amount of style in many of the scenes.  One suspects Duvivier did what he could to at least film a few good scenes in this hodge podge of Viennese waltz madness.

The film was written by a could of decent writers,  Samuel Hoffenstein and Walter Reisch but there was only so much they could do with this gooey mess of drama and high brow music.  Unsurprisingly the film did not make money. The running time is 104 minutes.