lor_ The production values and care of an MGM factory style motion picture is evident in the "big picture" called "The Red Danube". It was a failure back in 1949, and when I finally caught it at a Mid-Manhattan Library screening the pre-show poll of the audience of 80-plus revealed not a single fan had ever seen it before.It had no significant afterlife, though Ted Turner's buying MGM meant some TV exposure plus a 2012 WB archive DVD issuance, but surprisingly the movie's themes and contents are still highly relevant nearly 70 years later.Set in 1946 in Rome and Vienna, it concerns the displaced persons issue that was so significant after WW II, and treated in several classic films, notably Geza Von Radvanyi's neo-realist "Women Without Names" made a year after this movie and released in America on the art-house circuit by trailblazer Ilya Lopert. A terrific cast is headed by legends Walter Pidgeon, as a cynical British colonel stuck with the unsavory assignment of turning over "subsersives" to the Russians for shipping off to Siberia, and Ethel Barrymore as a mother superior at the convent where Pidgeon & staff are billeted in Vienna. They have an ongoing dialectical battle of words, as her deep Catholic faith is played off of Pidgeon's depressive lack of any moral compass, down in the dumps since the death in the war of his son.Two hour movie is separated into two distinct parts: the first half after some comic relief (Angela Lansbury as Pidgeon's assistant is terrific in adding warmth and Eve Arden style humor to the picture) settles into a glossy love story of officer Peter Lawford, as dashing as they come, falling in love with a beautiful Russian ballerina on the lam but due for deportation, played empathetically by Janet Leigh. Leigh even gets to show impressive dancing skills in a ballet class rehearsal, typical of the MGM class approach to an A picture.Second half broadens the scope of the movie's themes, as Barrymore cleverly manipulates Pidgeon and the dire situation, even to get him to take her against orders on a trip to Rome so she can meet with the pope, all in the cause of saving the hapless refugees caught between lily- livered allies (represented by Pidgeon and his fellow Brits) and the duplicitous and patently evil Soviet regime. The film makes it points vividly against the authoritarianism and sneaky tactics of the Russkies, without lapsing into the blatant propaganda of the usual Hollywood Cold War movie, for example "My Son John", which starred Helen Hayes in a role Barrymore might have played (but it was a Paramount, not MGM, release). George Sidney's direction is impressive, especially when he inserts tight close-ups of romantic Leigh and Lawford at key moments, looking as lustrous as silent era shots and having as much impact. I kept trying to guess how the ending would turn out -would it be the usual and derided "Hollywood Ending" or a more trenchant one given the dead-serious subject matter. The last couple of reels verge on camp, but both scripters and Sidney are to be commended for such clever audience manipulation as to deliver laughs and tears on cue.Biggest surprise, beyond the clear relevance today of the Refugees problem, was an uncanny and comical reference to a specifically 2017 issue. The screenplay has many colloquial expressions as tag lines, notably an American phrase "like nobody's business", as well as the cutesy singing of Row, Row, Row Your Boat in many scenes, that pay off with a most amusing Barrymore/Pidgeon encounter. She compliments him, calling him a tramp, then correcting her English, "you're a Trump!". I wasn't familiar with the British colloquial term, which has other meanings in Blighty referring to farting, but here it occurs right after Pidgeon's character has been revealed to be easily duped by the Russians, led by imperious Louis Calhern as his colonel counterpart for the USSR. The relevance to President Trump's very odd taking everything President Putin says as truth and his incessant cozying up to the Russians is inescapable and amusing - Black humor in our current time of Trumpian woe.

edwagreen A very good piece of propaganda may best describe this 1949 film dealing with repatriation of people after World War 11.Walter Pidgeon stars as the non-believer assigned to Rome and Vienna after the war. There he encounters the Mother Superior, played so well by Ethel Barrymore.The story concerns itself with Maria Buhlen- a young and wide-eyed Janet Leigh, who has been living in Austria, but since she is a Russian citizen, she must return to the Soviet Union. Even as a ballerina, her fate will be sealed there. Maria manages to escape before being turned in by the British who are looking to appease the Soviets. Of course, legislation is pending in the U.N. that would help repatriates such as Maria.Love blossoms along the way between Maria and an army man, Peter Lawford. Lawford, other than making love to Ms. Buhlen, has little to do here. Love seems to conquer all until tragedy intervenes.The film succeeds in showing the deprivation and fear of such people caught up by world politics. That little Austrian girl will just tug at your heart.The heavy here is Louis Calhern. He turns in a fine performance as a Russian soldier who goes by the book. He goes after Maria Buhlen with a vengeance.Mother Superior? Maria? Hiding Maria? I thought I was back in "The Sound of Music" momentarily but this film is worthwhile and should be seen.

bkoganbing Russian colonel Louis Calhern is looking for prima ballerina Janet Leigh to take her back to the Soviet Union in post World War II Vienna in 1946. His quest is the heart of The Red Danube. The Red Danube came out in 1949 and is set at the time when people thought it possible to keep the wartime Allies on the same page. That was not to be due to the differences in the two political systems that combined to defeat Hitler.Walter Pidgeon is recently transferred to Vienna and gets an order to find her and turn her over to the Russians. He doesn't count on three things, his aide Peter Lawford falling for Janet, the formidable presence of Mother Superior Ethel Barrymore who is sheltering Leigh, and his own growing conscience about what he sees around him.People would rather die than return to the worker's paradise that Communism has created. I mean literally, both here in the film and in real life back in the day. It's easy to dismiss The Red Danube as a Cold War inspired film. But the situations are way too real.Best performance in the film is Ethel Barrymore, followed closely by Pidgeon as the British Colonel with a conscience. Pidgeon is a nonbeliever and his debates with Barrymore about religion are the best thing in the film. Part of the film has Pidgeon getting Barrymore on a military plane to see the Pope in Rome during a conference concerning refugees. Now mind you this is Pius XII we are talking about who before and as Pope never quite saw the danger Hitler was to the church that Stalin was.But I'm willing to bet that seeing Ethel Barrymore delineate the character of the Mother Superior this was a woman who walked the Christian walk as well. I'm even willing to bet she probably sheltered a few Jews during the holocaust as well.

kjbeirne A solid film, which it is strange to see people calling controversial, since one would think that there would be little doubt any more about the nature of Soviet Communism, and the horrors perpetrated by Stalin. The cruelty of the allies turning over innocent expatriates to the Gulag and worse is rather convincingly portrayed. The moral dilemmas are decently examined, there are outbreaks of actual Christian faith and, of course there is a love story, because western audiences could hardly handle a movie without one. Barrymore is pungent, Leigh is beautiful, Lawford is sentimental, and Pigeon is as stiff as you could want a Brit to be. And Angela Lansbury makes a charming supportive appearance. Not a great movie, but a reasonably honest one which has nothing to do with McCarthyism and is definitely worth a viewing.