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[0:00] David Armstrong: Welcome to another episode of Broadway Nation, the podcast that tells the remarkable story of how immigrant Jewish, queer, and black artists invented the Broadway musical, and how they changed America in the process. I'm David Armstrong, and my guest this week is Albert Evans, who once again joins me as we go in search of lost Broadway. In this case, the 1934 smash hit musical THE GREAT WALTZ, conceived, directed, and lighted by Hassard Short, book by Moss Hart, based on the Viennese operetta and London hit WALTZES FROM VIENNA, with lyrics by Desmond Carter and music by Johann Strauss Jr. and Sr. If you missed the first episode in this series, you may want to catch up with that before listening to this one.

Today, Albert and I will begin to explore the long legacy of THE GREAT WALTZ, which included film and stage productions that stretched from the 1930s to the 1970s. Before I bring Albert into the mix, because 2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Johann Strauss Jr., I thought it would be interesting to look at his surprisingly substantial legacy on Broadway. According to the Independent Broadway Database, between 1882 and 1990, more than 26 Broadway productions featured the music of Johann Strauss Jr., the first seven of which took place during his lifetime, between 1882 and 1899, beginning with a production of his operetta THE QUEEN'S LACE HANDKERCHIEF, and including multiple productions of THE GYPSY BARON and DEFLATOR MOUSE.

Many Strauss productions would follow over the following 90 years, including, of course, THE GREAT WALTZ, and an even bigger hit, an adaptation of DEFLATOR MOUSE titled ROSALINDA, which opened in 1942 and ran for 611 performances. Broadway Nation is made possible in part through the generous support of our patrons, including longtime friend of the podcast, Judy Hucka. If you would like to help support the work of Broadway Nation, there'll be information at the end of the episode about how you, too, can become a patron. Now, on with the show!

[2:37] David Armstrong: So Albert, welcome back. Last time we met, we explored both the original Broadway version of THE GREAT WALTZ and its precursor, WALTZES FROM VIENNA, which, of course, had opened in London prior to that, and we even talked a little bit about the German-language version of WALTZES IN VIENNA, which predates both of those. Today, we're going to talk about the fourth incarnation of this story and of this musical.

[3:01] Albert Evans: Which is the MGM movie.

[3:04] David Armstrong: The MGM 1938 version, also called THE GREAT WALTZ. But is it a movie version of the Broadway Great Waltz? That's the big question. It's called THE GREAT WALTZ. It's telling a very similar story, certainly a story about Johann Strauss Jr. It's using the instrumental music of Johann Strauss and turning that into songs. But none of the songs from the Broadway show are in this movie. Let's do some analysis of how this movie relates to the Broadway production, even though it's coming just a few years after the show has been on Broadway and been a big hit on tour as well.

[3:41] Albert Evans: And the movie, the 1938 movie, is probably now the most familiar movie version, even though the 70s version had a good audience. But it's pretty much forgotten, actually. I don't think there's ever been a DVD release of it or a streaming version. You just can't see it.

[3:52] David Armstrong: I mean, you can see it now because it's free on the web. I wouldn't say the dark web, but it's free in that way of those odd, often Russian sites where you can find things. And you can indeed see that.

[4:10] Albert Evans: Yeah, I mean, we watch it on that. But you really can't buy it.

[4:13] David Armstrong: No, it's not commercially available. And so, yes, I agree with you completely. I think the 1938 MGM version is the most famous, is the most acclaimed. We'll talk about that later, whether we share that acclaim or not. But it was well-received and has been received well by historians of today. And it does look fantastic. It is a fantastic-looking movie.

[4:36] Albert Evans: It is. It's a full, deluxe MGM spectacular. It is in black and white, however, which is a little surprising, but it's 1938. Not everything was being made in color. You know, this is a year before The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind and those movies that really insisted that spectaculars had to be in color.

[4:54] David Armstrong: Exactly. But even very famous movies from even a few years later, like Casablanca, are in black and white. So we're still in this world where a black and white movie is not seen as second best. It's just what's more suited to the material.

[5:08] Albert Evans: The big difference is that we have an entirely new plot, although with similarities that we'll talk about. We have an entirely new score with a new set of lyrics now by Oscar Hammerstein. So we have a strong Broadway connection to this movie. Even if it's unclear to me from the credits and things like that, I'm assuming that MGM bought the rights to The Great Waltz to make this movie.

[5:33] David Armstrong: I think they did. However, there aren't that many actual sung songs in the movie. It's the most so far of the movie, because the Hitchcock movie had almost no songs. But of course, there's a lot of orchestral music that is very elaborately presented, and we'll get to that.

[5:52] Albert Evans: Yeah, and once again, in this movie, the orchestral music is just beautifully done and sounds amazing, as it has in every version of this. In his book, When Broadway Went to Hollywood, director Ken Mendelbaum places this film in a line of movie operettas that thrived in the 1930s, most of them reworkings of Broadway operettas from the 1920s, and most of them revised as vehicles for the incredibly popular team of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.

[6:31] David Armstrong: Mendelbaum notes, the series lasted only seven years, yet in its heyday, these films were commercially vital, and operetta became a Hollywood staple.

[6:39] Albert Evans: These are movies that you and I both grew up on because they were on TV all the time when we were kids, in the 50s and the 60s, respectively.

[6:45] David Armstrong: Well, and the Nelson and Jeanette movies are really what kept operetta alive and probably inspired theaters to produce the operettas, because everyone growing up in that period saw these movies, knew them, knew what they were getting in for, and so people continued to produce them. But I think without the Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald movies, probably operetta would have died out a lot sooner.

[7:03] Albert Evans: In the American theater, you mean. It already pretty much died out on Broadway, but then it had this long, extended life in American culture and in regional theaters like the Uni and St. Louis. One of the few theaters where you can find there were productions of The Great Waltz, even. I think several times they produced The Great Waltz over the years because it was part of this middle-brow, middle-class American culture that just responded to these tunes, number one, to these great melodies.

[7:33] David Armstrong: And indeed, the Muny and St. Louis produced The Great Waltz seven times, beginning in 1937 and including productions in 1940, 1943, 1946, 1951, 1956, and for the last time so far in 1961.

[7:51] Albert Evans: So this movie is very much in this vein, is part of this era, I guess, of movie operettas in the 1930s. But of course, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy are not in the movie. And in fact, the three leads in this movie are all Europeans, which when we watched it together, two of them were completely unknown to us. The star we knew the best was Louise Rainier, who had won the Academy Award just a year or two prior to this for The Great Zinkfeld, where she gives an amazing performance in that movie. And it was interesting to look at the trailer for The Great Waltz. They're sort of referencing The Great Zinkfeld in the trailer for The Great Waltz, using the word great on purpose, because I think they're trying to say, if you love The Great Zinkfeld, you're going to love The Great Waltz. And of course, she is billed as Academy Award winner Louise Rainier, who plays in this, the love interest, the wife, the woman who will become the wife of Johann Strauss.

[8:50] Albert Evans: It's odd because the movie is not really tailored to her strengths, her sort of tremulous crying scenes, you know, or in The Good Earth, where she's just the salt of the good earth. She's playing a rather undefined character, and that surprises me that they didn't take more care. Since they could have done anything with these parts, no one really cared about who the characters were in real life. It just surprises me that it wasn't tailored specifically to her strengths.

[9:18] David Armstrong: And she gets top billing. Of course, she's the only one with an Academy Award and the only American that people would have known her name in the cast. But I agree with that. I found her very disappointing. She does get to do a lot of her face acting, which she is very good at. A lot of her talent is reacting. But yeah, it's not a very interesting role. The other two actors are a gentleman named Fernand Gravy, spelled G-R-A-V-E-T. And I read about him today, which is very weird, because his name was Gravy, pronounced gravy in French, and it was spelled G-R-A-V-E-Y. And then Hollywood changed it to G-R-A-V-E-T, and then launched a campaign to tell people that it was pronounced gravy, which I just don't understand at all. What was that about? Anyway, very talented, fairly engaging performance by him. And he went on to remain a star in Europe, and a hero of the resistance in World War II. I mean, he didn't disappear.

[10:18] Albert Evans: Yeah, his Hollywood career was cut short because he went back to France to fight with the resistance. So he didn't really get the Hollywood career that he might have had otherwise. And in a similar manner, the other woman in the movie of this love triangle that we'll talk about in a minute, is named Milizia Korgas. She was a European opera star. She's quite engaging in the movie, quite interesting. Her career also gets cut a little bit short because of, I think, family matters. I can't remember that exactly. But I think she has to leave Hollywood and not sort of follow up on this incredible launch in this movie. Again, in the trailer for the film, her name appears, Milizia Korgas, and they say pronounced gorgeous, which is quite hilarious. But she is quite beautiful.

[11:08] David Armstrong: Yeah, she's quite beautiful. And she actually was a genuine operetta, not an operetta star, an opera star. She has an incredible coloratura voice, which is exploited maybe even a little too much in this movie. But she's able to do all those coloratura runs and, you know, just way up high in the stratosphere. And yet, they don't just sound like a computer's doing them. A lot of coloratura is just like... She actually imbues them with meaning, which is why I think she's very appropriate to this.

[11:42] David Armstrong: In Search of THE GREAT WALTZ, part 2.

[11:55] ♪ Musical number: "I'm Just a Girl Who Thumps Around" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[12:25] David Armstrong: And she made a big star and, you know, made records and performed all over the world in opera companies. Her coloraturic stylings were a little too much for me, but you can't not be amazed by them. She's quite accomplished and quite beautiful as well.

[12:55] David Armstrong: Albert and I will be back with more Broadway Nation right after this quick break.

[13:06] David Armstrong: Hi, this is David Armstrong, and if you're enjoying this episode, I strongly suspect that you will want to read my new book, Broadway Nation, How Immigrant Jewish, Queer and Black Artists Invented the Broadway Musical, on sale now wherever books are sold. And I'm very happy to report that the early reviews have been terrific. The esteemed author Jeffrey Bloch says that Broadway Nation is a fascinating, comprehensive and timely gem of a book that more than lives up to its promise of delivering no less than five books in one. Kudos to David Armstrong. And Tony Award-winning lyricist David Zippel says that David Armstrong's insightful history of the evolution of the Broadway musical and its creators is captivating and comprehensive as well as indispensable.

The book is of course available on Amazon, but I recommend that you go to the publisher's website, bloomsbury.com, where you will currently receive a 10% discount. Again, like the podcast that inspired it, the book is titled Broadway Nation, How Immigrant Jewish, Queer and Black Artists Invented the Broadway Musical. Now back to the show.

[14:21] David Armstrong: So the story is now similar to the original version and clearly influenced by it, even if they felt they couldn't copy it in every respect. And of course revolves around Johann Strauss Jr. as the central character. But what's quite remarkable is the central conflict of both Waltzes from Vienna and The Great Waltz on Broadway. This conflict between the two Strausses, Johann Strauss Sr. and Johann Strauss Jr. is entirely missing from this movie. And in fact, Johann Strauss Sr. is entirely missing from this movie, which is one of the most surprising things. I mean, he's referred to, but he just is simply not part of the plot. Yeah, his wife, Johann Strauss Jr.'s mother is in the plot and has a bigger role to play than in any of the other versions, or at least until we get to the 1970s one.

Yeah, the linchpin of the story for the creation of this musical originally is now entirely missing. So now the central story revolves around a love triangle, really very important in Hollywood, of course.

[15:17] Albert Evans: Yes, and that love triangle echoes the love triangle in the original version to a great extent. We again have a young, innocent woman played by Louise Rainier in this version. They have different names. Her name is Poldi in this version, and she plays a very similar character to as we've seen in both of the other two versions. She's actually a little more sympathetic than the woman in the Hitchcock version, who is actually sort of not encouraging him to go and be a composer. She wants him to remain and take over her father's bakery, and so that makes it odd to really sympathize with her when she's trying to actually quash this whole, no, don't compose waltzes, bake bread. So you're just wondering who to root for in the Hitchcock, but in this one they're more evenly matched. They're both canny women, and again it's Louise Rainier playing against type to really have a conflict with this other woman.

[16:19] David Armstrong: And then Gorgeous plays this opera star in this other part of the triangle. Yes, she plays a famous opera star named Carla, but it's a very similar character to the Countess in the previous versions, who is both of them are older, sophisticated women who play an instrumental role in launching Strauss's career and making him the toast of Vienna, and ultimately give him up to the younger, more innocent woman.

[16:45] Albert Evans: Yeah, less worldly. Exactly. One is strong and sort of fascinating, and the other is a little wimpy and not quite so interesting, which is surprising because Louise Rainier is such a great actress.

[17:02] David Armstrong: Yeah, and she seems to be playing a secondary character, actually, in this movie. And it's odd because the movie ends with they are in conflict, and which one is he going to choose? It's the opera singer that ends up sort of, no, I give him to you. They become sort of friends by the end.

[17:18] Albert Evans: Yes. And it's just, it's strange.

[17:25] David Armstrong: Well, it's very Hollywood, trying to get the drama and a little bit of the sex aspect of this love triangle onto the screen without, you know, I think they purposely make the relationship that Carla has with her aristocratic boyfriend, who she ends going to at the end, rather than going with Strauss, a little vague. Are they married? Are they not married? They're not married, technically. But they've been a couple for a long time. And as far as society is concerned, they are matched.

[17:47] Albert Evans: Exactly. And then there's several other aspects of the story that are new to this version. Strauss is obsessed with composing waltzes from the beginning of the movie. He can't think about anything but composing waltzes, even though both the dance and seemingly even the music of a waltz are considered to be scandalous and improper at this time, which is somewhat based on fact and on history. But the way they tell this story in the movie, I found to be completely ridiculous. I remember you and I were sort of laughing at that aspect of it.

[18:21] David Armstrong: And in fact, there's a scene at Carla, the opera singer's party. She invites Strauss right after first meeting him to come and perform at a party she's giving for all these grand sophisticates at her elaborate villa or wherever it is. She debuts one of his songs there.

[18:43] ♪ Musical number: "Looking at You and Wanting You" — performed by Unknown performer ♪

[19:02] David Armstrong: And of course, that's one of those quite hilarious MGM moments that happen in many, many movies of musical type, where she barely glances at the song and then sings it perfectly. And, you know, they always spoof that. I love that moment in Dame's at Sea where she sings the first line of it and then throws the music away and sings the rest of it. It's almost that that happens. And as I recall, that happens a few times in this movie.

[19:29] Albert Evans: It does, indeed.

[19:33] David Armstrong: Have to touch the music and then suddenly they're giving a full-out performance.

[19:36] Albert Evans: Yeah, Strauss is debuting a song and suddenly everybody knows the words, even though they've just only heard a quarter of it, which, you know, we have to suspend some disbelief in these things. But it was a little too suspended for me.

[19:45] David Armstrong: But at this party, they sort of have a moment where they will start the waltz very slow so they won't know it's a waltz. We'll take it out of tempo at the beginning and we'll sort of trick them into hearing a waltz, even though they're going to be scandalized by it.

[20:04] Albert Evans: She starts this out of tempo and everybody's smiling. And then when the waltz tempo starts to kick in, the audience gets very, very nervous and upset and starts gossiping to one another.

[20:54] David Armstrong: And then, of course, they're won over by it by the end and actually start to waltz, which is like, well, how do they even know the waltz if it's so scandalous and horrible? You can watch the clip of that particular scene and several of the other numbers from this are available on YouTube. It's shot so beautifully and the costumes are so gorgeous and the settings are fantastic. And I remember remarking to you that Carla Marizia, gorgeous, wears a tiara in that song that I could not take my eyes off. It just sparkles. It's like a one-act play going on overhead during all this. It's quite spectacular.

[21:42] Albert Evans: Again, there's like taking little bits of history and elaborating on it in a way that I just did not find very credible.

[21:48] David Armstrong: Well, there really wasn't that much conflict in Strauss's life. I'm talking about Junior, because all he did was write. He didn't do hardly anything but work and write music.

[22:00] Albert Evans: Yeah, both Strauss's had nervous breakdowns because they were such workaholics. But Strauss's life was working and he could write fast. People would say, oh, you have to have a waltz by tomorrow, you promise. And you say, oh, I totally forgot. And then by the next day, not only would he have written the waltz, it would be totally orchestrated, but that actually reflected who he was in real life. That actually happened. That wasn't MGM that made that up. He was that obsessive and that sort of driven. And he just ended up, you know, having a true nervous breakdown and almost died.

[22:32] David Armstrong: Again, as we try to figure out what about this is like the Broadway show that we can't go back and see, this and pretty much every version of the story has the crucial scene at the beginning of the story in Domeyer's what was called a casino. Then I don't think that meant a gambling place. I think it just meant a ballroom type of place, which was a real place. There's still a Domeyer's cafe in Vienna on the site of where that was. But that original structure is no longer there. But his debut in 1844 is something that links all of these versions of the story together. And it's interesting how this movie will relate to the later movie. They both have this theme of the windows being opened at Domeyer's, and there's no audience that shows up to hear him initially for his debut. And then the music wafts out.

[23:25] Albert Evans: Opened the windows into the streets, and eventually everyone comes. It's like the Pied Piper calling all the people, and he turns into a sensation literally in one night, which as you read about it seems to be not so far from the truth; he was sort of an instant sensation. I doubt it happened quite in that manner, but it does seem to be telling a story that is real, and that setting is common to all of these different versions.

[23:53] Albert Evans: Another sequence in this movie that I think people may remember, even if they haven't seen the movie, it was featured in That's Entertainment, I think in the original That's Entertainment, which is the Tales of the Vienna Woods sequence, which was presented in That's Entertainment for laughs, and it is pretty hilarious in a way, but it's also beautifully done. This is to remind people Johann Strauss Jr. and Carla are riding in a carriage through the Vienna Woods. They don't like each other at the beginning of this. I mean, they're very suspicious of each other. Right. They've had, you know, a flirtation, but they're still not quite connected at this point, but this will connect them, and as they ride through the Vienna Woods, the birds trill, and the shepherds are blowing their horns, and the clickety-clack of the carriage itself, they're in a horse-drawn carriage, which just happens to be in three-quarter time, the way it's quite artfully done.

It's hard to do clickety-clack in three-quarter time. They do it really well. I was looking at that clip again today, and it's like, well, that is pretty brilliant, because they make it sound completely natural, and, you know, the birds start to do, so you'll hear the bird, and then he'll start to whistle, and then she'll complete the tune, and eventually, by the time this sequence is over, he has heard and written Tales of the Vienna Woods, all based on the natural sounds they hear around them.

[26:41] Albert Evans: It is, again, one of those moments like, well, I don't think that's the way songwriting works, but it is beautifully done. Because it's very hard to show in a movie people creating, especially at a desk and writing. I mean, there's nothing dramatic about it. It's just hard work. One interesting thing that I realized when I look at the cast list is that the coachman in that sequence, his name is Christian Rube. He's actually German, but he was Geppetto in Pinocchio. He played the role in the cartoon of Geppetto, and once you hear that, you go, oh, that's where I know that voice from. That's funny, and he plays an important role in this sequence. And he's the one who's listening and going, oh, this always happens when I drive the horses.

Someone always writes the song. Tales from the Vienna Wood is obviously presented in this outdoorsy setting where they're being inspired by nature and the clip-clop of the horses and all of that, which, again, is a way to show someone composing a song without having them sit at a desk. And in the same way, in the Hitchcock movie, the Blue Danube Waltz is inspired by the noise of the bakery. The love interest is the daughter of the bakery owner, and Strauss gets a tour of the bakery, and he hears all the sounds, the sounds of ovens opening and people tossing croissants and just all of the mechanical sounds that are happening at this bakery. And I think that may have given the authors of the 38 MGM version an idea for how to show Strauss composing without showing him composing.

[28:35] David Armstrong: I think you are absolutely right. I agree with that completely. They are parallel sequences, and they use the same technique of this song, this tune is going to be inspired by things that are happening in the environment around Strauss, and they artfully make those events sound like the tune that we know and that he will eventually write. So I would be very surprised if the Vienna Woods sequence was not directly inspired. They watched that movie from just a few years earlier, or maybe it was subconsciously, but I suspect it was conscious. It's like, well, let's do something like that. That was good. They figured out how to show a composer being inspired. Very, very smart. Another element of the plot that is only in this movie is Strauss becoming a part of the revolution against the monarchy, and this plays a major role in this story.

And his music is depicted as being a key to the success of the revolutionaries. It's almost like a little precursor to Les Mis in a way. And they go marching through the streets and building the barricades, spurned on by Strauss's march. So far, we haven't been able to determine that that plays any role in history. Is that true? Or any relationship to that?

[29:51] Albert Evans: No, I don't think so, other than the fact that Senior and Junior were on opposite sides. Senior Strauss was an ardent supporter of the monarchy.

[30:00] David Armstrong: A conservative.

[30:01] Albert Evans: A conservative. He was a conservative, and Junior was basically on the side of the revolution. And Senior had written a march called the Radzetsky March, which is in honor of a famous general who was on the side of the monarchy. And Junior actually played this march later on, you know, because he was not opposed to... He loved Vienna. He loved Austria. This guy was a hero. And this became part of Junior's repertory. I don't know how ardent a revolutionary he was, if, you know, he did that. And in this movie, during the revolution, he has a confusing interaction with Emperor Franz Joseph, who he doesn't know who it is at the time. And then later discovers that he... And he sort of insults him.

[30:44] David Armstrong: He sort of insults him and has this, yeah, conflict. And maybe that's sort of a stand-in for the conflict with his father. And then later, Franz Joseph, and I can't pretend to know the politics of all this or the history of it, but I understand that Franz Joseph embraces the revolution to a certain extent and liberalizes things. And I think they were able to come together because the conservatives become more liberal through Franz Joseph, if that's the way to say it. So it may be that that is why Junior is able to then embrace the music of his father and the music of the conservatives later in life. And it is still, I think, one of the most famous pieces. Vienna loves that piece, the Radzetsky March, in spite of whatever political associations it used to have.

And it's interesting because in neither of these versions, one of the most famous waltzes that Junior wrote is the Emperor Waltz, which he wrote for Franz Joseph. But that's not told in any of these stories, which is interesting. And you'd think they would have used that in this version where Franz Joseph is a character in the story.

[31:44] Albert Evans: Right. So one thing about the Radzetsky March is its rhythm, which might seem strangely familiar. If you remember the march, it goes, which is exactly the same rhythm as Rossini's William Tell, which came first. And there's a certain amount of speculation if Strauss Sr. was unconsciously influenced by that rhythm. But they both have that same, maybe that's why you hear them both in cartoons. Another thing that's interesting about that is that song, that march, is the very first music that you would hear in the original version of The Great Waltz and in Waltzes from Vienna. And in fact, in the movie of Waltzes from Vienna, that's the march that that band is playing when the fire scene is happening.

So that is the topic statement of The Great Waltz, is hearing this Radzetsky March, and then all of those versions and hearing the Blue Danube Waltz. In some ways, the story is how you go from the Radzetsky March to the Blue Danube Waltz, epitomizing the drama of the son replacing the father.

[32:56] David Armstrong: Let's talk about these new songs. Oscar Hammerstein is engaged to write the lyrics for these new songs, none of which bear any relationship to the songs from the original Broadway version or the London version, other than there is a lyric about the Blue Danube. It's not the same lyric, but they're similar lyrics because, of course, you're talking about the Danube being blue. There's only so many places you can go with that. And of course, the Danube is famously not blue, but now in the public mind, it's blue.

[33:31] Albert Evans: Exactly. Our triumphs over life. And it's interesting because almost all the lyrics try to deal with that a little bit. They'll slip in silver and they'll slip in some other references to the color of it, but you have to have the Danube being blue in the title of the song somewhere close to it. These lyrics, they're, of course, accomplished. They're Oscar Hammerstein, so there's nothing wrong with them, but they don't really create very distinctive songs. Certainly not songs that have lived on, except for one, which I did find that there are a couple what we would call cover recordings of today. I don't particularly like that term, but later recordings of, and that is the song I'm in Love with Vienna, which is quite stirring.

[34:35] ♪ Musical number: "I'm in Love with Vienna" — performed by Albert Evans ♪

[34:50] I know that I am in love. I'm in love with Vienna. I'm in love with Vienna.

[34:58] Every sight, every sound on the street is sweet and dear to me.

[35:07] I was born in Vienna. I was born in Vienna.

[35:07] Albert Evans: With a waltz in my heart, and put the heart of a pet to sing. Sing about Vienna, sing about her sights, and sing about her sounds, and sing about her nights. To her and to her life I ever will belong, for I'm a part of her song. It did have a certain afterlife, but it certainly, when you're doing a tribute to Oscar Hammerstein, no one ever sings that. No, it's not anywhere near a standard by any means. I mean, he did a good professional job, but he doesn't seem particularly inspired. It just seems like, oh, MGM is going to pay me to write some lyrics for this movie, and I haven't really had a hit in a long time, and maybe I better do this. And the songs aren't doing what he would ultimately become famous for and become interested in doing, which is telling the story.

They're sort of songs that are songs. They're all done in performance. None of them are done within the context of the story. Even the farewell song that Carla sings as the boat pulls away reminded us both of Show Boat, in a way, because she rides away on a paddle wheel steamer of some kind, which fascinatingly makes no noise to interrupt her song singing. But there's an orchestra on the boat that's playing an existing song that Strauss wrote, and she says, remember this one, and then she sings it and has her farewell moment. So there's nothing where the songs are tied into the story, just as plot songs. So all in all, this film does not seem to get us very close to experiencing the original stage production, which is, of course, our goal here, is to try to find ways to do that with the exception of one element, and that is, interestingly, the movie is choreographed by the original stage choreographer, Albertina Rasch.

She seems to be the only person from the Broadway version that is connected to the movie, and it's not clear at all whether she's recreating any of her choreography that was done on stage. There is a scene that feels a lot and looks a lot like the final scene of the Broadway version, a ballroom with all the chandeliers and the room filled with dancers, which I think was something that was in the mind of people. If they had any reference to The Great Waltz on Broadway, they probably had some idea that there was this big scene with all these chandeliers and everyone waltzing in the orchestra on a platform, and that does seem to be echoed in this movie, not as the final scene, but near the end of the movie.

[38:01] David Armstrong: Well, I don't think there's anyone around to tell us whether it was recreated, but she was a very prolific choreographer, so she might have taken certain favorite moments from her earlier work. I was going to say, her work on Broadway was very extensive and involved ballets, and so the movie does not have any of that aspect in it. In fact, the original reviews all talked about how amazing these ballets were, one of them starring Alexandra Danilova, the great Russian ballerina who was on Broadway at the center of one of these Albertina Rasch pieces in The Great Waltz, and you don't see that at all in the movie. But Albertina Rasch was also a big movie choreographer during the 1930s, so in some ways it made sense that she would do this movie regardless of whether she'd done the Broadway version.

And it's not a very dancey movie, other than the waltzing is beautiful and impressive, and in fact both of the leads waltz very impressively while singing high notes, and they were probably pre-recorded, but their waltzing is quite good for opera singers, I have to say. And quite exciting. So Albert, in summing up this movie, I think maybe you liked it a little more than I did, but I don't think it was either one of us our favorite movie. Tell us what your review of it would be.

[39:02] Albert Evans: Well, I think MGM was the star of this movie, frankly. It showcased everything that they did really well, except maybe storytelling. And even that had its moments in the Vienna Woods sequence, in how they treat the Blue Danube, the origin of that. But I agree with you, David, it's not one that I would, hey, you gotta see this. I'm not gonna be dragging anyone and setting them down and saying, now this is a movie musical. But it's certainly an interesting footnote. And it is interesting that I think they misused Louise Rainier, and it's odd, giving the other two leads to total unknowns. I mean, unknowns in America. People who weren't familiar already to American audiences. I can only assume they were trying to make stars, but it does seem that they went really far down that road. And you can understand why they cast them. They're talented people.

[40:01] David Armstrong: Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. I actively had negative responses to this movie as we were watching it, and just found it to be very disappointing and fairly ridiculous. But of course, Albert and I do not have the only opinions on this. This was a very successful movie, and a very well-reviewed one. And to give you just one example, Ken Mendelbaum, who talks about this movie in his book, When Broadway Went to Hollywood, says that it's a notable film, and for all its frivolous waltzing about, he considers it to be a great work of cinema, and says that the director Julian Duvivier captures the very intoxication of music as no one had before. So, of course, we encourage all of you to see these various versions for yourselves, and let us know what you think.

We'd love to hear from you. This will not be the end of the story of The Great Waltz. This will be followed by three incarnations of a new stage version of the show, beginning in the 1940s and all originating at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, the same place where the Broadway musicals Kismet and Song of Norway originated. And, like those shows, this new version of The Great Waltz will have an entirely new set of lyrics by the team of George Wright and Chet Forrest. The 1970s incarnation of that production will be announced for Broadway several times, but never make it to New York. In between, there's a 1950s live television production of the show with an entirely different set of lyrics.

Then, to top it all off, bizarrely, in the 1970s, there'll be a major motion picture of The Great Waltz, although I guess it makes some sense in the wake of The Sound of Music. Movie studios were desperate for anything to replicate the success of that musical, which is why we got The Song of Norway becoming a major motion picture. Then, just barely a year later, The Great Waltz became a major motion picture, both of them with heavily revised scores based on the stage productions with lyrics by Wright and Forrest. And then, the other thing which I want you to watch, Albert, for our next conversation, is there is a Disney movie called The Waltz King, which I started to watch, and it is clearly an unofficial version of The Great Waltz.

They just didn't pay the royalties. I think they just didn't buy the rights, but they made The Great Waltz again. And it's actually pretty good. In some ways, I thought it's among the better versions of this story. Why do you think, Albert, and this is a hard question, I know, why did this have such staying power? Why are there so many versions over so many years, over decades? Because that Disney version, I think, is from the 60s. Why?

[42:41] Albert Evans: Well, I think it's obviously the music. I think that Strauss's music, both junior and senior, they wrote great, memorable music that was still being played in Pops concerts and, you know, New Year's Eve bashes. And I mean, it was very much a part of the classical music, the light classical music tradition in America. People loved these tunes. They wanted to hear them. And movie studios wanted to exploit them. And so they kept retelling the same story, trying to find a way of making the lives of junior and senior more interesting, frankly, than they really were, because both of them were just workaholics. And like we said earlier, there's nothing dramatic about people sitting at a desk and writing music. That's why the movies don't remain in public memory so much as the music itself, because there's really not a very compelling story to be told about father and son.

[43:36] David Armstrong: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. This music is so at the center of world culture. In spite of being looked down upon, people who are very involved in classical music often look down on Strauss, with the exception of Die Fledermaus, which, of course, has performed at the Metropolitan Opera and every other opera house in the world. But even there, I think it's performed on New Year's Eve. It's performed to be a sort of a fun, light classical work. It was originally written as a Christmas operetta, and then it rapidly became obvious that because it was all about drinking and adultery and whatnot, it wasn't really thematically right for Christmas. So they moved it to New Year's. Well, Albert, I can't wait to continue this discussion and this investigation in search of this lost musical, The Great Waltz.