Champagne Waltz
| Champagne Waltz | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | A. Edward Sutherland |
| Written by | Don Hartman and Frank Butler, from a story by Billy Wilder and Hy Kraft |
| Starring | Gladys Swarthout, Fred MacMurray, Jack Oakie, and Fritz Leiber |
| Music by | Multiple contributors including Oscar Hammerstein |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 87 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Champagne Waltz is one of five movies produced by Paramount in the 1930s featuring Gladys Swarthout, a very popular Metropolitan Opera mezzo-soprano. The studio was attempting to build on the popularity of Grace Moore, another opera singer, who had also expanded her talents into movies.[1]
Production
This is a light musical with elements of screwball comedy. It documents the rivalry between a Vienna Waltz studio and the American jazz band that moved in next door. Franz Strauss is stressed because his waltz palace is losing business to the jazz club. Fred MacMurray is the trumpet playing headliner. He pretends to be the US Consul when he encounters Swarthout, the daughter of the waltz studio owner. He changes the story to be an icebox salesman in order to continue wooing Swarthout. Meanwhile Oakie is falling for a countess who sold him a fake silver service.[2]
Time magazine gave the movie a poor review as a "heavy-handed musical naively designed to combine the best features of jazz with those of the Viennese waltz."[1]
References
- 1 2 "Champagne Waltz (Paramount)". Time magazine. January 25, 1937. Retrieved 2013-12-21.
The perennial and expensive effort to make a Grace Moore out of Gladys Swarthout seemed to have more logic some time ago when Miss Moore was a more important box-office draw. This version of the endeavor is a heavy-footed musical naively designed to combine the best features of jazz with those of the Viennese waltz. It concerns one Buzzy Bellew (Fred MacMurray), leader of a swing band which, reaching Vienna in a continental tour, ruins the business of the Franz & Elsa Strauss Waltz Palace. ...
- ↑ Champagne Waltz, Picture Show Souvenir, Paramount Studios, (booklet provided to movie patrons)