The film stars Michael Redgrave, Mel Ferrer, Anthony Quayle, Ludmilla Tchérina and Anton Walbrook and features Anneliese Rothenberger and Dennis Price.

The music, played by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under conductor Alois Melichar,[5] has new lyrics by Dennis Arundell, and professional singers dubbed for some of the actors.

[6] In 1955 Vienna, during its post-war occupation, the black-market dealer Dr. Falke (Anton Walbrook) moves freely through the French, British, American and Russian sectors, dealing in champagne and caviar amongst the highest echelons of the allied powers.

A vengeful Falke plans an elaborate practical joke on his friend, involving Orlofsky, British Major Frank (Dennis Price) who is sent to escort the French colonel to jail for his misdemeanor, Eisenstein's beautiful wife Rosalinda (Ludmilla Tchérina), her maid Adele (Anneliese Rothenberger) and a masked ball where no one is who they seem.

[11] Powell and Pressburger had suffered through four box office disappointments in a row before this film, which is one reason that Bing Crosby, Maurice Chevalier and Orson Welles were approached about playing the roles of Alfred, Eisenstein and Orlovsky – and Oh...

[13] A reviewer of the 2019 Network British Film DVD restoration however notes Heckroth's “stagey expressionism”, “dazzling cinematography aplenty”, and suggests that it prefigures “political operetta deconstructions” of more recent years.

[15] A restoration from the 35 mm CinemaScope original camera negative was undertaken prior to a Blu-ray and DVD re-issue in 2019; this included automated and manual dirt and damage removal and correction of instability, warping and density fluctuation.