The Emperor Waltz (1948)

[BijouMan]

Kino Lorber will add to their Blu-ray catalog Billy Wilder's The Emperor Waltz (1948), starring Bing Crosby, Joan Fontaine, Roland Culver, Lucile Watson, and Richard Haydn. The release will be available for purchase on August 17.

[James Luckard]

Has this release been cancelled?

Amazon just emailed me to say they won't be able to send it to me, and the option to order it at their site has been removed.

[Dailyan]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Has this release been cancelled?

Amazon just emailed me to say they won't be able to send it to me, and the option to order it at their site has been removed.

No. It's still available at Kino direct and other retailers like Bullmoose.

[dukiejosh54]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Has this release been cancelled?

Amazon just emailed me to say they won't be able to send it to me, and the option to order it at their site has been removed.

For some reason amazon has not been getting new Kino titles in stock. I canceled all my Kino pre-orders with them and I'm now getting them at Bullmoose. Bullmoose shipped my copy out last Thursday and I got it a day early on Monday.

[James Luckard]

I'll wait a week or so, I prefer Amazon's super easy returns policies if something is damaged. If it still hasn't shipped, I'll try another seller.

Glad to hear it wasn't cancelled.

[dukiejosh54]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

I'll wait a week or so, I prefer Amazon's super easy returns policies if something is damaged. If it still hasn't shipped, I'll try another seller.

Glad to hear it wasn't cancelled.

I prefer Amazon too because I got prime but they have not had any of the new Kino titles in stock for the last month so something must be going on. The picture quality looks really good though so it will be worth the wait whenever you finally get it 🙂

[uncledougie]

We also need an upgrade release of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, which was previously included in a double feature DVD release with The Emperor Waltz. That film paired Crosby with Rhonda Fleming, who looks a dream in Technicolor, as does the entire delightful production.

[James Luckard]

My disc arrived from Amazon on Wednesday, after having projected delivery dates that ranged all over August and September. I have no idea what is going on with Amazon not stocking KL titles on release day, but it's unfortunate.

As for the disc, I compared it to my French disc last night.

1) The transfer is identical. It's a watchable DVD-era HD transfer. It's a shame this title couldn't get a new 4K transfer like Five Graves to Cairo or The Lost Weekend, but this is a lesser Wilder film, so even though this one is in Technicolor, I'm glad the attention went to much more deserving films in the Universal Wilder collection.

2) The French disc has removable French subtitles for the dialogue, but it has forced French subtitles for all onscreen text and for the lyrics of all songs. This alone makes the KL disc the superior disc for English-speaking buyers.

3) The audio has some weird MINOR differences. I'm going to describe them, but PLEASE don't take this as me saying these are a reason not to buy the KL disc. The disc is fine. These are granular issues, it's just interesting because they don't appear on the French disc, I A/B'd the discs multiple times to check the audio at each spot.

It's important to point out that I also listen on headphones, because I live in an apartment, so I noticed little imperfections more than most, probably.

The KL disc has little pops in the audio fairly frequently. I'd say roughly every minute or two. They don't sound like the crackling of an old audio track, they sound like a very soft, quick "ppp." They're extremely soft, I only heard them with the headphones. When I switched to speakers, I couldn't hear them.

There's also a strange muffled sound, randomly every five to ten minutes or so, that almost sounds like a finger thumping against a microphone. It's MUCH clearer than the film audio. These thumps ARE audible even on speakers, but again, they're soft and not distracting.

Neither the pops nor the thumps are present on the French disc.

It feels like there are two possibilities:

A - the pops and thumps are inherent in the audio mix and the French disc somehow got rid of them. This seems unlikely. The sound is too even on the French disc, it doesn't sound like a flaw was erased at any of these points.

B - the KL disc had work done on the audio, and these strange artifacts were accidentally introduced.

I lean towards B. The dialogue seems much clearer on the KL disc, with less background hiss than the French disc. It does seem like KL cleaned it up. And, honestly, these artifacts are SUPER, SUPER minor, 90% of people will never notice them.

However, to hear a couple of pops, listen during the opening title cards at 2:09 and 2:16. To hear one of the "thumps," listen at 19:11 as Bing Crosby says "I came here to put that machine over."

As for the film... Perhaps it has some devoted fans, but I tend to agree with Billy Wilder, who completely dismissed it as a failure. I don't think it works at all.

That said, I still find it fascinating to watch misfires from a genius, because they're loaded with creativity and you can see him trying things nobody else was doing in that era.

Also, it's fascinating that, as soon as he came back from seeing his ruined countries of Austria and Germany and the horrors the concentration camps, he chose to make a frothy meringue set in the vanished Imperial Vienna he grew up in. It may not be one of his best films, but it's still worth seeing.

[Shanghai Express]

Interesting. I don’t suppose you could check out the Spanish Universal disc and see where that one falls

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Shanghai Express

Interesting. I don’t suppose you could check out the Spanish Universal disc and see where that one falls

I don't own that one. I bought the French disc last summer when it dropped to a reasonable rpice, because it was the only one in the world and I know European discs are often pressed in limited numbers. When the Spanish one came out last fall, I considered it, just because the forced French subs were so annoying, but then KL announced theirs, so I never ordered the Spanish.

Again, these audio artifacts on the KL disc are barely noticeable, unless you're super obsessive, like me, haha.

That said, if the Spanish disc has no forced subs and no audio issues, it might be superior by a hair's length.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by cfx

I have the Spanish Universal disc. There are optional English as well as optional Spanish subtitles. There are no forced subs, and the songs aren't tranlslated at all, even with the Spanish subs, at least for the one I checked--the song that starts with yodeling. I haven't watched the film yet so that's what I found by skipping around.

I didn't hear the audio issues described, though it could be there and my equipment or ears aren't up to the task. Based on the 19:11 timestamp and that line from Bing, the timing on this disc doesn't match; perhaps due to a logo or lack of one at the beginning. The only thing I heard around the 2:00 minute mark during the titles was a pair of very faint and muffled cymbal hits, that repeat when the same refrain in the music occurs again.

Yep, the KL logo would throw off the timing on any versions that don't have it, unfortunately.

This is probably my least favorite Wilder film, so I'm not sure if I'll invest in the Spanish disc to compare it, but I suspect the audio errors snuck in during some sort of work KL did on the audio, since the errors are not present on the French disc, which uses the same master.

That said, I do want to stress, again, that the errors are EXCEEDINGLY minor, and 90% of people will never notice them.

[James Luckard]

Bizarre. I was just watching another KL title I bought recently, Seven Days to Noon, a 1950s British thriller licensed from StudioCanal, and the exact same "thump" sound occurs 6:20 in, and continues happening every few minutes. It really sounds like a finger gently thumping a microphone on a sound system.

Just like in The Emperor Waltz, it's not overly loud, but it sounds CRYSTAL clear and deep, unlike the aged audio of the film itself, which has no real bass.

Different studio, Universal vs StudioCanal, so it seems unlikely that it's in both source masters.

This seems to be some strange artifact that enters into KL mono titles...

[HE1NZ]

Surprised it's rated so low. Thought it was a wonderful movie. Much better than that Gary Cooper snoozefest of Wilder's.