BasicLogic It was a great experience when I got the chance to watch this film when I was still a teenager, and now, I'm too old to remember a lot of things. This film also opened my eyes to see a brand new world of classic music. It was like a door suddenly opened and pushed me into an unworldly world and since then I never looked back and never could have accepted other forms of music. This film ushered me later to all the other great European musicians from A to Z, it also made me spend thousands of dollars buying albums. I've also lost lot of sleepless nights listening to the classic music; symphonies, operas, piano and violin concertos....and later fell into the charm of Mario Lanza's passionate songs and his movies. I finally have the pleasure and opportunity to watch this film again and still loved it so much like the first time I saw it.The world has changed into a very pathetic and absurd culture mixture since 1938. What we got now are endless horror movies, rap music, hip-hops, graffiti all over the place in every city of every country, tattoos, body piercing, drugs, porn, murders mysteries by most female writers, Marvel's superhero comic books adapted into computerized CGI special effect absurd films, Cold War, war against terrorists, trade wars, nuclear threats, global warming, devalued dollars, high price gasoline, battery powered auto pilot cars, a POTUS having affairs with porn star and lot of other high price prostitutes, iPhone and Samsung Galaxy Android smart phones....Garmin and TomTom GPS navigator devices phased out Thomas Guide maps...Are all of these showing us a better world? And how many movies in colors is really better than this elegant B&W film?

bkoganbing If it weren't for the fact that The Great Waltz was made at the MGM lot it would have qualified as a foreign film. The three stars were all imports as was the director Julian Duvivier and a great deal of the cast are also foreign born. Nevertheless the cast spoke perfect if accented English. Of course Herman Bing's accent as the proprietor of Dannmeyer's Cafe where the music of Johann Strauss gained its first audience and popularity. But with Fernand Gravey as Johann Strauss you'd never know he was Belgian born and a star of the French cinema of first rank.This is far from the story of Johann Strauss, II. In fact that story would have been really interesting, but instead we got Viennese frou-frou laden with Strauss music. Luise Rainer is Mrs. Strauss, the first one actually, he married again much after the action of this film is done. The film really could be called Strauss, The Early Years. Young Strauss is looking to make good in music like Dad who really disapproves of his son following in the profession. But Rainer supports him all the way, even when he gets himself involved with opera singer and vixen Miliza Korjus.If you think you've seen Rainer in this situation before, you have. Both of her Oscar winning performances in The Good Earth and The Great Ziegfeld involved Rainer as the wronged wife. She did the part well, no one could register hurt on the screen like she could with just a look, but I think she was getting into a typecasting rut. It might have been part of the reason that she left MGM after one more film and Hollywood in general after another film at another studio.As for Miliza Korjus it was well known that Louis B. Mayer never met a soprano he didn't like. I'm betting he signed her to keep Jeanette MacDonald in line. But after this film with plans for another on the boards she got involved in a serious automobile accident and after she recovered she just went back to the concert stage. Fernand Gravey only made a few films in America, he went back to France after this one and just in time to be caught up in the Nazi occupation.To give Korjus some music to sing the Strauss music was given lyrics by the best man around to do that, Oscar Hammerstein, II. The Great Waltz got an Oscar for cinematography and nominations for editing and for Best Supporting Actress for Miliza Korjus. Truth be told she seemed to have just as much screen time as Rainer.But of course the main attraction of The Great Waltz is the music of Johann Strauss. Good enough reason to see this movie.

blanche-2 Jules Duvivier directed this opulent, highly fictionalized musical film about Johann Strauss II. "The Great Waltz" stars Luise Rainer, Fernand Gravet and Miliza Korjus.Strauss II married several times, but none of his wives were named Poldi Vogelhube. She is most likely modeled on Strauss' third and last wife. The Carla Donner character, with whom Strauss falls in love, did not exist. Strauss did form an orchestra, however, consisting of friends at the tavern, and did play at Dommayer's Casino. He also was involved in the revolution on the side of the revolutionaries.None of these biographical facts are the point of this movie - it's about the beautiful music, the singing, and the romance. There it succeeds, and the film was an enormous success, especially in the European markets.Luise Rainer gives a lovely performance as Poldi, who faces losing her beloved husband to another woman, and Gravet is an effective Strauss. Thalberg gave the European coloratura Korjus, who plays operatic diva Carla Donner, a contract on the basis of one of her recordings. We can assume it wasn't a recording of her singing Die Fledermaus.Korjus was a good bet for Hollywood - she was beautiful, glamorous, a good actress and a good singer, with a few caveats. She had a lovely quality to her voice, glorious pianissimos, and her technique was adequate, but her coloratura high notes were straight and screechy. Her singing of Die Fledermaus toward the end of the film is massively off-pitch - it's surprising the recording was not re-done.The best scene in the film is Strauss and Donner going through the Vienna Woods and Strauss coming up with the Tale of the Vienna Woods while listening to the birds and hearing the different rhythms as they travel. A very fun scene.An incredibly expensive film with beautiful music, costumes and dancing.

Enrique Sanchez A very long time ago, I gave up on Hollywood being accurate with biographies let alone bios of composers! So, tonight I sat down to watch TCM's Guest Programmer by a REAL operatic diva, Renee Fleming first choice. I just cannot believe that I have lived 51 years and have never heard of this movie or even seen a snippet anywhere! In just the first exciting music sequence I was witnessing a miracle! I remember so well when the millennium's Moulin Rouge came out a few fuddy-duddy friends of mine called it outrageous because of its frenetic pace! (Apparently, they had never seen THIS movie which was made in 1938 not in 2001!) The frenetic pace of the SUPERLATIVE cinematography alone is worthy of one viewing of this miraculously beautiful movie! All of the principal players were just so good...sure this is an old-fashioned way of acting - so what! (I tell you, some reviewers don't have any idea about the history of acting and film by the way they so trash older movies and their "quaint" ways.) Oh yes...and the music, the music, THE MUSIC!!!!!!!!!!! What a glorious discovery! I thank Renee, Robert, TCM and Charles Nelson Reilly (wherever he is) for recommending this movie to Renee! If you don't like this - then you need medical checkup quickly!