French Director In Old Vienna

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 33, 27 January 1939, Page 14

French Director In Old Vienna

{"The Great Waltz." M-G-M. Directed by Julieu Duvivier. Starring Luise Rainer, Fernand Gravet, Miliza Korjus. Release date indefinite-} Now that the Nazis are in the saddle, I wonder how long it will be before Vienna ceases to be popular as a setting with the writers of idyllic musical romances? Ov. as the years roll by. will we grow more and more sentimental about the place, until it becomes, in legend. a kind of Austrian paradise last? Whatever happens, nobody is likely for a long time. to set up a finer memorial to the gaiety and charm of old Vienna than the M-G-M production "The Great Waltz." Nobody. is likely for a long time, either, to make a bigger or better musical entertainment.

Duvivier’s Direction Tt is asking a lot, I know, to ask > anyone to believe that there — could be anything left in the subject of Vienna worth making a film about. Yet there was somethinethe: music of Johann Strauss, the younger. . So far as the actual facts of Strauss’s career are concerned, the producer of "The Great Waltz’ kobviously played. the favourite Hollywood game of ducks and drakes; but he has disarmed this kind of criticism. by anticipating it. As a foreword points out, the firm strives to present, not the facts about Strauss so much as his. spirit. as revealed in his music. The producer’s' motto has been "Hands Off The Music!" Even so, there would be nothing to make "The Great Waltz" particularly notable were it not for the way in which Director Julien Duvivier and his assistants have translated the music, and the spirit of the music, to the screen. Duvivier is the celebrated French director, who among other things, has made "Wn Carnet de Bal." "The Great Waltz" is his first American production-let us hope it will not be his last, though they say he is not enamoured of the atmosphere of Hollywood. In The Woods T is easy to speak knowingly about this business of direction and what it means to a picture; yet even. the average, uninitiated picturegoer must sense almost immediately that the tech-

nique of "The Great Waltz" is out of the ordinary.. As presented by Duvivier, even such dear old hackneyed classics as "The Blue Danube" and "Tales from the Vienna Woods" sound almost as if one was hearing them for the first time. it is an_ exhilarating experience. Mark how the director achieves a perfect blend between music and. pictures in that sequence which tells how Strauss composes "Tales

from the Vienna Woods" while he and his lady fair are driving through the. countryside in the early morning. A shepherd’s. pipe sounds: the theme, it is taken up and. elaborated. in the song of the birds, the call of coach horns. The clippety-clop: of the horses’s hoofs fills in the hackground-and ingeniously, and very beautifully, there you have the complete composition. Galli-Curci’s Equal ECOND outstanding feature of: "The Great Waliz’ is the screen debut of Meliza Korjus, Seandinavian coloratura sopranu. It is two years since M-G-lf imported Meliza Korjus, dumped her down in Hollywood among a batch of assorted Continental ‘"discoveries" and then apparently forgot all about her. To M-G-M’s eredit, however, let it be said: that when at last they did decide to give her the chance to be a screen star, it was a real chance. She portrays the "other woman" in the life of Strauss-an opera singer named Carla Donna, or something equally operatic. As such, she

acts very competently, sings amazingly. Not since the days of GailiCurci in her prime have I heard anything like the vocal gymnastics of this Scandinavian songbird; and even Galli-Curcei, I think, eould not equal her for such a. combination of sweetness and flexibility. "Kiss Gorgeous" N its own quaint way, Hollywood. has decided that Meliza Korjus’s name is to be pronounced "Gorgeous." Despite the command to this effect in the cast announcement, I refuse to do anything of the sort; but the implied compliment to.the star is not undeserved. Miss Korjus is really not far short of being gorgeous. Or perhaps "juscious" would be 2 better word, for she. reminded me of 2 very refined, magnificently musical, version of Mae West. Against the opulent charms of this dazzling creature, Luise Rainer (as Poldi, the wife of Strauss) has. litthe chance to shine, it?s a negative sort of part anyway, rather too selfsacrificing and sweetly devoted to ring true, but with several flashes of brilliance tm the familiar Rainer manner. Though. it’s mot a great performance, Fernand Gravet makes a

good Strauss, mercurial and moody in the manner expected of musical geniuses. Fine Combination T ig neither the story nor the acting, however, which turns "The Great Waltz’ into an entertainment to be heartily recommended. The story, in fact, tails off; and would have created 2 better effect without that final lachrymose sequence of Fernand Gravet and TEuise Rainer, bowed with age, receiving the plaudits of a grateful Vienna. But the combination of Strauss’s music (which showers the screen with melody all through the picture), Duvivier’s direction, the singing of "Miss Gorgeous," and M-G-M’s accustomed splendour of settings, is so completely satisfying and so happily effervescent that I can even forgive M-G-M for trying to mislead me about the pronunciation of "Korjus."