JohnHowardReid Walter Pidgeon (Colonel Nicobar), Ethel Barrymore (mother superior), Peter Lawford (Major McPhenister), Janet Leigh (Maria), Angela Lansbury (Quail), Melville Cooper (Sergeant Moonlight), Louis Calhern (Colonel Piniev), Francis L. Sullivan (Colonel Omicron), Robert Coote (Brigadier Cathlock), Alan Napier (the general), Roman Toporow (Lieutenant Omansky), Tamara Shayne (Helena Nagard), Konstantin Shayne (Bruloff), Janine Perreau (Mickey Mouse), Victor Wood (aka David Hydes) (Lieutenant Guedalia-Wood), Geoffrey Alan (major), Argentina Brunetti (Italian woman), Kasia Orzazewski (Sister Kasmira), Margo Von Leu (Lani Hansel), John Royce (sergeant at rehearsal), Carol Savage (Private Jemima), Tito Vuolo (Italian bill-poster), Audey Long (Countess Cressanti), Doris Lloyd (Mrs Omicron), Lotus Thompson (female private), Emil Rameau (proprietor), Henry Kulky (Russian lieutenant), Kenneth Hunter (the brigadier- general), Sigmund Halperon (a German), Richard Fraser (the transport checking officer).Director: GEORGE SIDNEY. Screenplay: Gina Kaus, Arthur Wimperis. Based on the 1947 novel Vespers in Vienna by Bruce Marshall. Photography: Charles Rosher. Film editor: James E. Newcom. Art directors: Cedric Gibbons and Hans Peters. Set decorators: Edwin B. Willis and Hugh Hunt. Costumes designed by Helen Rose. Make-up: Jack Dawn. Hair styles: Sydney Guilaroff. Special effects: Warren Newcombe. Camera operator: John M. Nickolaus, jr. Music composed by Miklos Rozsa, orchestrated by by Eugene Zador. Sound supervisor: Douglas Shearer. Producer: Carey Wilson.Copyright 29 September 1949 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Picture. New York opening at the Capitol: 8 December 1949. U.S. release: 14 October 1949. U.K. release: 17 April 1950. Australian release: 18 May 1950. 10,689 feet. 118 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Seeking refuge in postwar Vienna, a young ballerina is determined not to be repatriated to her Communist homeland.NOTES: Nominated for an Academy Award for black-and-white Art Direction, Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters, Edwin B. Willis and Hugh Hunt, lost to Sunset Boulevard.COMMENT: Although here it serves as a blatantly biased piece of hysterical anti-Communist propaganda, the plight of displaced persons in postwar Vienna seems a worthy enough theme. Indeed it was treated with both realism and stunning power in :The Third Man" (1949). Unfortunately, however, the characters of The Red Danube form a medley from musical comedy and gaslight melodrama. In real life, Colonel Nicobar would have faced a court martial and Colonel Piniev a firing squad, whilst the Mother Superior would have been drummed out of every convent this side of heaven. And while Hollywood may fondly imagine that brass hats are all comedic morons, they are definitely not akin to the amusing cretins depicted here by Messrs Robert Coote and Francis L. Sullivan. In all, it is difficult to name a less credible tale served up under the guise of realistic fiction. Yet, thanks to director George Sidney's skill, abetted by some fine photography and excellent sets, certain scenes do come across with undeniable force.

Robert J. Maxwell In 1949, when this was released, the terms of the Cold War had been reasonably well clarified. A huge vacuum had been left by the collapse of the Nazi Reich and arguments followed over the question of how to divide it up between the several victors.This film incorporates many of the more important issues, at least as we perceived and interpreted those issues at the time. The in conflict in occupied Austria is personalized in the atheistic military sensibilities of Walter Pidgeon, the simple faith of Mother Superior Ethel Barrymore, and the sneering treachery of Louis Calhern as Colonel Piniev. To maintain the interest of those who are bored by politics, there is the tragic romance between British officer Peter Lawford and the yummy displaced person Janet Leigh. The conflict boils down to what should be done with Leigh. The orders are to repatriate her and turn her over to the Soviet Union.There is a masterful film out there covering some of these issues. That film is called "The Third Man." This one is full of stereotypes involving politics, religion, and love. Ho hum.Brothers and sisters, this is really preachy. The Russians show no humanity, no remorse. The British sometimes bumble but play fair and are earnest about their humanitarianism. They're gently guided in the right direction by the quiet and elliptical remarks of the lovable old Mother Superior. The conflicts are real enough. Who wanted to live in the USSR under the brutal regime of Stalin? But there are ideological arguments between Pidgeon and Calhern, the latter sounding like a wind-up mannequin programmed to spout Marxism for Dummies. It has three things going for it. Nice shots of a C 47 taking off and landing, the perky presence of Angela Lansbury, and it serves as a peek into the past, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, a kind of cinematic time capsule. It should be shown in all high school classes. Not only as a picture of historical reality but as a splendid example of propaganda. The Russians were producing similar films at the same time. (They were shown in Europe but never in the US.) During and preceding the war, Germany made the same kind of movies. All of them clearly identified the good guys and the bad guys, just like in a John Wayne Western from the 30s. Thinking was treated as an irritant, whereas, as Charles Sanders Peirce observed, "belief is thought at rest."

ResoluteGrunt Just what is the propaganda in the movie? The following comments by "choosy" (from Seattle WA US) are, for the most part, accurate: "The other comments miss the point completely--the focus in the novel was not Cold War propaganda but the facts of the insane policies of the US and British in their respective zones of occupation in Germany and Austria to forcibly remove or return Eastern Europeans, not just Soviet citizens, even including ethnic Germans, most of whom had endured untold horrors trying to escape to the west, safety, and 'freedom' at the end of the war. That was the bemused Walter Pigeon's problem, not 'war guilt' but having to 'obey orders.' " (...AFTER the war.) "Most expellees were anti-Soviet, which is why they had escaped to the west to begin with, and thus went back to a certain death. It wasn't a small part of history--it was one of the biggest Allied mistakes and betrayals, and there were many, of the Occupation." Here "choosey" has a reasonably solid handle on events, regardless of the novel or the movie. But the following of "choosy's" comments are off-base, primarily because he does not consider the whole picture. "The fact that this forceful expulsion was done because the Allies a. did not want to feed and care for refugees, and b. did want to curry favor with the Soviets at that pre-Berlin Blockade period makes the history even more poignant." The US Army (including the British Army) at that time was actually TWO armies in transition, as the combat forces who had fought their way across Europe to war's end gradually turned their functions and responsibilities over to a fresh Occupation Army - fully prepared to address whatever was needed in the immediate post-war period in their respective zones of responsibility. Not wanting to feed or care for the refugees or concern about currying favor with the Soviets simply did not enter the equation, nor was there any need to; this is pure revisionism. There were diplomatic protocols signed by the highest levels of all involved governments before the war ended; it was the duty of the soldiers of those respective governments to comply with those protocols, most of which at the time they were signed had solid rationale.The policies mentioned in "chosey's" comments above were, in fact, in full agreement with procedures to which the Allies (US, GB, France and Russia) had worked out prior to the end of the war. Similar procedures were required of the Russians in repatriating "displaced citizens" to their proper homes in the west. Russia was seen during the war as a co-equal partner in the overall war effort on the European continent, and US combat forces (Patton's army), in fact, actually withdrew from forward positions they had reached in Austria and Czechoslovakia so that those regions could be turned over to Russian forces as per previous agreement concerning post-war occupation. (The US and UK could not have won the war in Europe without Russian participation, but all nations always exact a price for their cooperation. Russia under Stalin was no different.) It rapidly became apparent, however, that Russia and its military, if not its political leadership, had very deep-seated scores to settle with those population groups who were seen as having fought against Russian forces, and thus had caused such horrendous spilling of Russian blood. (Probably the most confusing group was the Ukrainians - who had repeatedly been forced to turn and fight their previous "partners", back and forth, and even each other, during the ever shifting circumstances of the war in the Ukraine.) Russian rule in the zones over which they had control after the war very rapidly became quite ruthless, and it quickly became apparent to everyone that the KGB was, in fact, calling all the shots. There is also considerable evidence that the KGB was executing policies dictated by Stalin himself. Still, US and British military personnel stationed adjacent to the Russian zones or as liaison personnel were required to assist with the "resettlement" or "repatriation" procedures - which caused considerable internal turmoil among those men that lasts to this day.On the other hand, there were also (fewer) numbers of people we were trying to repatriate from the Russian zones in the East to their proper homes in the West, including those warehoused in concentration camps and prisoner of war stockades. In order to accomplish that, we had to demonstrate some degree of reciprocity.These things were, and remain, simple facts of history. War, and its aftermath, is rarely as neat and tidy as after-the-fact armchair generals would prefer. War is always, at best, a series of compromises and constantly changing circumstances. The procedures depicted in the movie had nothing at all to do with "feeding the red scare, the rise of McCarthyism, or as propaganda" to use somewhere else in the world. These days we ALL seem to use events for our own particular agendas, simply by putting some twisted ignorant spin on them, or by creating asinine cause-and-effect scenarios to best suit our own purposes. No one stops to consider that any two-bit twit can throw cheap stones from the very safe sidelines, and what is safer than the distance of a half century? But, in the end, facts are facts. The major events shown in the movie happened. Do with them what you will, but I prefer to keep them as they actually were - simple reality, facts of life, consequences of war.As a life-long intelligence/liaison/diplomatic ground force professional, veteran of several wars, student of military history, who also served in Occupied West Berlin for five years watching good people die trying to get over The Wall to the West, I am .... Old Soldier

choosy I had read the novel first, Vespers in Vienna, which was delightful as well as sad. The other comments miss the point completely--the focus in the novel was not Cold War propaganda but the facts of the insane policies of the US and British in their respective zones of occupation in Germany and Austria to forcibly remove or return Eastern Europeans, not just Soviet citizens, even including ethnic Germans, most of whom had endured untold horrors trying to escape to the west, safety, and 'freedom' at the end of the war. That was the bemused Walter Pigeon's problem, not 'war guilt' but having to 'obey orders.' The fact that this forceful expulsion was done because the Allies a. did not want to feed and care for refugees, and b. did want to curry favor with the Soviets at that pre-Berlin Blockade period makes the history even more poignant. Most expellees were anti-Soviet, which is why they had escaped to the west to begin with, and thus went back to a certain death. It wasn't a small part of history--it was one of the biggest Allied mistakes and betrayals, and there were many, of the Occupation. Angela Lansbury is terrific and got the character just right.