Out of all of Billy Wilder's films up through the mid-60s, The Emperor Waltz might be the least
satisfying. It's not bad at all, but it
lacks the sharpness of Wilder's previous work; four consecutive films that were
all either perfect or near perfect. It
may be the fact that it's a musical, that it takes place in a period setting, that
it's his first color film, or merely that it was the first after a three-year
break, but in any case it feels as though he's in transition and looking for
his voice. Bing Crosby plays a salesman
of record players traveling in Austria Brooklyn charm. There are scores of great lines and hilarious
situations courtesy of Wilder and producer/co-screenwriter Charles Bracket, but
it ultimately feels slightly watered down.
Fans of romantic musicals, however, will certainly not be disappointed. If this might have been an exercise that
Wilder and Bracket needed to fulfill in order to recharge their batteries, it certainly
paid off, because up next were two staggering masterpieces in a row before they
ended their partnership; A Foreign Affair
(1948) and Sunset Boulevard (1950).
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