Rainer received top billing at the producer's insistence, but her role is comparatively minor as Strauss' wife, Poldi Vogelhuber.

[2] Hitchcock's Waltzes from Vienna set the stage for this Julien Duvivier’s Strauss biopic, which maintains the character of the baker's daughter from the original stage musical while focusing on Johann Strauss II's revolutionary inclinations and the creation of his popular operetta, Die Fledermaus.

Carla asks Strauss for some music to sing at an aristocratic soiree, and this leads to the composer receiving a publishing contract.

He is received by the Kaiser Franz Joseph I of Austria (whom he unknowingly insulted in the aftermath of the student protests), and the two stand before cheering crowds on the balcony of Schönbrunn.

[1] The film was re-made in 1972, with Horst Buchholz playing Strauss, alongside Mary Costa, Nigel Patrick, and Yvonne Mitchell.