The Great Waltz

Johann Strauss, son of the famous waltz composer, is dismissed from the bank because he prefers to write sheet music. His fiancée Poldi (Luise Rainer) supports his musical ambitions, but it is only with the singer Carla (soprano Miliza Korjus) that he makes his breakthrough ... and also falls for her in his private life. An MGM super production whose technical virtuosity became the declared model for Gone With the Wind, especially Joseph Ruttenberg's Oscar-winning camera, whose crane shots inspired Julien Duvivier's ambitions just as much as the budgetary freedom. Artistically, however, Hollywood proved to be limiting: Josef von Sternberg and Victor Fleming were unnamed co-directors, but Duvivier's desire to experiment and his European flair nevertheless characterize this dream factory apotheosis of the "Viennese film", in which Strauss marches inspire the revolutions of 1848 and the stories from the Viennese forest fly to him on the carriage ride with Clara thanks to the twittering of birds and the pattering of horses' hooves. A musical monument. (Christoph Huber)

Photo: Austrian Film Museum