Rated: -

There's discord in the Strauss household as composer Johann senior (Edmund Gwenn) resents the competition from his own son. Johann junior (Esmond Knight) gets his big break with a commission from a wealthy countess (Fay Compton) and, hey presto, comes up with The Blue Danube waltz.

This tedious period drama, laced with the Waltz King's music, was an unsuitable and uncharacteristic assignment for Alfred Hitchcock and is completely devoid of even his earliest signature trademarks. The film represents the nadir of his career and was one he preferred to forget. The Lodger was already six long years down the line and since then Hitchcock had directed nothing of note. He could easily have fallen by the wayside, become but a postscript in the history of British cinema.

But from this moment on Hitch traversed the road to screen immortality for he made his first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much next and never looked back.