Sight and Sound (2007) - "Waltzes from Vienna" & "Downhill"

Details

• book review: "Waltzes from Vienna" & "Downhill"
• author(s): David Thompson
• journal: Sight and Sound (01/Oct/2007)
• issue: volume 17, issue 10, page 90
• journal ISSN: 0037-4806
• publisher: British Film Institute
• keywords: Adaptations, Alfred Hitchcock, Black & white films, British cinema, Comedies, Constance Collier, DVD recordings, DVD special features, Downhill (1927), Dramas, Edmund Gwenn, Esmond Knight, Europe), Film (International, Film (Productions), Film musicals, Guy Bolton, Ivor Novello, Jessie Matthews, Romances, Silent films, Universal Studios, Video recordings, Waltzes from Vienna (1934)

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Abstract

Here we see far more evidence of the master's hand, the film slipping subliminally between reality and fantasy as Novello's fate worsens, and with one astounding scene in a nightclub where the arrival of daylight reveals the true decadence on the faces of its clientele.

Article

Waltzes from Vienna/Downhill

Alfred Hitchcock; UK 1934/1927; Universal/Region 2; 76/82 minutes; Aspect Ratio 1.33:1

Films: Often cited as Hitchcock's worst film, Waltzes from Vienna (retitled in this French edition Le Chant du Danube) was the director's only venture into the world of musical comedy, made when, in his own words, his career was at its "lowest ebb". Based on a British stage hit of the day, the film's subject is the oedipal conflict between the waltz king of Vienna, Johann Strauss senior (Edmund Gwenn), and his budding composer son (Esmond Knight). Jessie Matthews, for whom the project was a star vehicle, is the winsome love interest. Lumbering comedic scenes prevail, and among the few visual pleasures is an unlikely sequence showing how the 'The Blue Danube' waltz was inspired by the rhythmical events in a bakery.

Far more interesting is the 'extra', the silent Downhill, drawn from an Ivor Novello play and featuring the effete star himself as a schoolboy wrongly accused of theft and cruelly tossed into a downward social spiral. Here we see far more evidence of the master's hand, the film slipping subliminally between reality and fantasy as Novello's fate worsens, and with one astounding scene in a nightclub where the arrival of daylight reveals the true decadence on the faces of its clientele.

Disc: Very fine transfers, with removable French subtitles. Downhill, though given digital restoration treatment, should arguably be run at a slightly slower speed but it benefits from Christophe Henrotte's energetic and eerie original score. There are no extras. (DT)