Champagne Waltz

Champagne Waltz (1937) 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]

Champagne Waltz
Directed byA. Edward Sutherland
Written byDon Hartman
Frank Butler
story by Billy Wilder and Hy Kraft
StarringGladys Swarthout
Fred MacMurray
Jack Oakie
Fritz Leiber
Music byMultiple contributors including Oscar Hammerstein
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • 1937 (1937)
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

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 moves 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]

Cast
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See also

References
  1. "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.
  2. Champagne Waltz, Picture Show Souvenir, Paramount Studios, (booklet provided to movie patrons)
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