Waltzes from Vienna

Alfred Hitchcock was not fond of this movie. He viewed it as the lowest point in his career, a movie he directed only because he had no other projects scheduled and didn't want to not work. This is amusing to me, as this is, so far in my journey through Hitchcock's filmography, the earliest movie yet that has the hallmarks of his later works from a visual standpoint ... and yet, I could also feel the total lack of interest in the screenplay. Waltzes is a semi-autobiographical piece based on a musical of the same name, about Johann Strauss' composition and first performance of The Blue Danube. The stage play is a musical, and while music plays an important role in the movie, it is in no way, shape, or form a musical, but music is integral to the story. There are, in fact, three stories going on at the same time; the aforementioned writing and performance, a rivalry between Strauss and his father, also a composer who views his son as a worthless bit player whose ambitions are to be dismissed, and a love triangle between Strauss, his love Resi, and Countess Helga, who sees great potential in Strauss and becomes his benefactor. Waltzes is, even within Hitchcock's oeuvre, a weird one. It does not fit into any of the buckets his other movies do. It has dashes of comedy, romance, and drama, but not enough for any of them to firmly plant a flag, and therein lies the real problem with Waltzes. It is not bland in the way an unseasoned steak is bland, but more in the way water is bland. The way it arrives, conveys a sequence of events, and ends is similar to the way a cat walks through your backyard to get from point A to point B. I would comment on the story arcs, but I cannot in good conscience call them arcs any more than I can call a gopher hole a mountain. The audience is informed there is supposed to be a love triangle, but until the last five minutes (of this barely 80 minute film), the relationship between Strauss and the Countess is presented as more of a patronage than romantic, with all of the "tension" coming from Resi being insanely jealous at Strauss being within a city block of another woman, and Strauss shows no feelings whatsoever towards the Countess except gratitude. Strauss has so little self-esteem that he has almost no agency whatsoever; the two times he's given a choice -- give up music to join Resi's dad's bakery or pursue music and lose Resi, and perform his song thanks to the machinations of the Countess or lose Resi -- they come with such heavy consequences, they hardly feel like choices at all, the result of which is the main character being a pathetic sack that gets pushed around by everybody. But none of this "drama" -- and those quote marks are doing heavy lifting even Atlas would struggle to match -- lands, because the movie doesn't try to make it land. It's not that Waltzes struggles with tone, it's that it never attains one. The moments that should be heavy and carry weight have all the dramatic heft of following the delivery driver on DoorDash's live map. None of the characters are interesting to follow; Strauss is a sad sack that couldn't fight for what he wants if he had the 82nd Airborne behind him, Resi demands Strauss live in her world without trying to understand what makes the man she loves tick, Strauss' father is a cold egomaniac who can't stand the thought of someone else (especially his son) be good at music, and the Countess is barely more than a plot device. How is anybody supposed to be invested when neither the story nor the characters can stir up even the slightest of interest? I was so mystified by this movie's lack of energy, when I read it was based on a musical but Hitchcock had the songs removed, I wondered if maybe having the musical numbers may have been an improvement. And musicals are my least favorite genre, so figure that out. What makes this all the more frustrating is that the movie is shot and editing so beautifully. Hitchcock mapped out every edit, both sight and sound, ahead of time, and it shows. The visual and auditory aspects of this movie move like clockwork together, synchronizing in ways that are so simple but so effective. It shows how much Hitchcock was understanding, even this early in his career, that the medium of film itself could be just as important in making a movie as the contents on the screen. The scene where Strauss, having resigned himself to giving up music because he is unable to crack the code on The Blue Danube, is touring Resi's dad's bakery is a fantastic example of this harmony between sight and sound; as he hears the sounds of the bakery's operation, he hears passages of the song in the day-to-day operations. We can hear the song slowly coming together, which builds to the big performance at the end. And there's plenty of signature Hitchcock cinematography to be found here. If you've seen enough of his movies, you know how he likes to compose shots, and you'll see the beginnings of his signature style on display here. But to see that, you have to sit through a movie that is the equivalent of having plain white bread as a snack. The comedy lacks jokes, the drama lacks drama, there isn't any heart in the romance, and tension isn't allowed within 50 feet of the proceedings. It's not the worst Hitchcock movie I've seen, but I'm comfortable saying it is his most passionless.