Waltzes from Vienna (1930): What You Need to Know about Hitchcock’s Musical Biopic, Starring Edmund Gwenn as Johann Strauss Sr., Fay Compton, Esmond Knight, Jessie Matthews (Father Vs. Son)

Waltzes from Vienna
Theatrical release poster

With a libretto by A. M. Willner, Heinz Reichert and Ernst Marischka, this stage production contains music by Johann Strauss I and Johann Strauss II, selected and arranged by Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Julius Bittner into musical numbers. Hitchcock, however, did not include these musical numbers in his film.

He also changed the story’s ending. In the stage musical, Resi, the baker’s daughter, decides that her father’s apprentice, Leopold, will make a more suitable husband than the composer, Schani (Johann Strauss II).

By contrast, Hitchcock’s film ends with Resi and Schani declaring their mutual love.

Waltzes from Vienna begins with the sound of fire brigade horn and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves, as the firemen race towards a fire at Ebezeder’s Café.

Upstairs from the café, Resi and Schani are oblivious, lost in a love duet that concludes with Schani telling Resi that he has dedicated his newest song to her. At the same time, Schani’s music attracts the attention of the Countess Helga von Stahl, who is shopping in the dressmaker’s store next door. Schani and Resi’s romantic interlude is interrupted by Leopold, a baker in Resi’s father’s café who is in love with Resi, as he awkwardly climbs up the ladder to save her. Schani and Leopold argue over who will save Resi from the fire, but Leopold eventually wins and hauls Resi over his shoulder and down the ladder, causing her to lose her skirt on the way. Resi races to the dressmaker’s shop to get away from the laughter of the onlookers. Schani retrieves Resi’s skirt and then stumbles into the dressmaker’s in search of Resi, where he meets the Countess. When the Countess learns that Schani is an aspiring musician, she proposes that he set some of her verses to music.

As the Countess offers Schani her card, Resi enters the room and becomes immediately suspicious of the Countess’s intentions.

With the romantic triangle set up, the next scene sets up the conflict between Schani and his father. At orchestra rehearsal, in which Schani plays second violin under his father’s baton, Schani gets himself in trouble when he insults his father’s music to his stand partner.

The elder Strauss overhears and demands that Schani perform one of his own compositions for the members of the orchestra. Strauss Sr. then ridicules his son’s waltz and tells him he could never have a career as a composer, inciting Schani to quit the orchestra.

Excited by his newfound freedom and commission from the Countess, Schani visits Resi at her father’s bakery to tell her his news. Resi informs Schani that, if he wants to marry her, he will have to give up music and take over the bakery.

However, reading the Countess’s lyrics, she is drawn into the music, singing the opening of “The Blue Danube” waltz to Schani.

Their moment of composition is interrupted when Resi’s father arrives to give Schani a tour of the bakery. As Schani and Ebezeder walk into the basement, a memorable and unusual scene of musical composition begins. While Schani looks around, the tune that Resi sang begins to evolve. Two men throwing bread back and forth inspire the second phrase of the melody; a man tossing croissants into a box creates the offbeat rhythm of the waltz. The rhythm of the dough mixing machine provides Schani with the second main theme of the first waltz. As he tells the begrudging Leopold to go faster, this second theme turns into the beginning of the second large section of piece, at which point Schani runs upstairs, exclaiming to Resi that he has finished the composition. He then rushes off to tell the Countess that he has composed the perfect waltz to accompany her verses.

Schani plays the final measures of the waltz to the Countess. After he finishes, she kisses him and then apologizes profusely, explaining that she was overwhelmed by his wonderful music. Schani then plays the second section of the waltz while her hand rests possessively on his shoulder, which, through a dissolve, becomes Resi’s hand. After thanking Resi for coming up with the phrase, Schani agrees to dedicate the song to her. As the scene fades away, the page with Schani’s dedication to Resi flips up to reveal another page with the same title, but dedicated to the Countess.

The duplicity is discovered when Resi hears Schani and the Countess playing the waltz for the publisher Anton Drexler. Schani explains and they reconcile only when Schani promises to give up his music to work in the bakery. However, Schani is miserable in his new job and he fights with Resi when he receives an invitation from the Countess to attend St. Stephen’s Festival.

Resi threatens Schani that if he attends it will be the end of their relationship. Meanwhile, the Countess plots a ruse to cause Strauss Sr. late arrival for the festival so that Schani can take his father’s place to conduct his new waltz.

Main event is Schani conducting The Blue Danube at the festival. The Countess detains the elder Strauss by asking the dancers to play to his ego, requesting that he play his waltzes over and over for their pleasure.

Strauss Sr. finally arrives to find that his son has taken his place performing. Meanwhile, Resi laments that Schani betrayed her by coming to the festival at the Countess’s command.  The elder Strauss is angry at his son for not asking permission to  perform.

Schani leaves the festival in confusion and the Countess follows him home where they share another kiss. However, the romantic moment is interrupted by the Count, who left the party in a rage.

Resi arrives in time to replace the Countess, who then walks back up the front stairs to surprise her husband, as the crowd outside hums The Blue Danube Waltz.

Edmund Gwenn: 4 Films for Hitchcock

A character actor, Gwenn is best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the popular Christmas film, Miracle on 34th Street (1947), for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. He received another Oscar nomination for the comedy Mister 880 (1950).

He is also known for appearing in four Hitchcock films, including playing the lead in the 1955 The Trouble with Harry.