The least known, and many say least important, of all of Josef von Sternberg's films, the frothy operetta The King Steps Out (1936) was a long way from the exotic classics he made with Marlene Dietrich only a few years earlier. He doesn't even mention it by name in his 1965 autobiography Fun in a Chinese Laundry. He only notes it as a film based on an operetta by Fritz Kreisler "to serve Grace Moore," the opera diva who enjoyed brief cinema popularity in the 1930s. Reportedly the two did not get on well during production, and von Sternberg mentions that in her book, "purported to be an autobiography, the prima donna whined that she did not think I knew what I was doing. It was the usual grumble, the same old complaining lament."

The director likely knew what he was doing, but critics found it hard to see evidence in The King Steps Out that he much cared. He was criticized for the "lumbering" treatment of the comic bits and for capturing his star in some rather unflattering close-ups. Only during the bustle of Viennese crowd scenes, particularly the sequence when Emperor Franz Josef goes out in public incognito (hence the title), does von Sternberg show any glimmer of his visual and narrative flair. Nevertheless, the picture was one of the biggest hits of the year, thanks largely to Miss Moore's charm and accomplished soprano, some pleasant humor, and the Kreisler score, some of which was taken from his own 1919 Broadway musical Apple Blossoms, featuring Fred and Adele Astaire.

The story finds Moore as Princess Elizabeth, aka Cissy, who poses as a humble dressmaker to save her sister from an unwanted arranged marriage to the Emperor of Austria. As The New York Times put it in a review of the movie, "When we add that the Emperor Francis Joseph is none other than our old friend Franchot Tone, with his hair in curls and spotless white uniforms to wear, then you may not be altogether astonished to hear that Miss Moore eventually takes her sister's place after winning the Emperor's heart."

The story was taken from the play Sissy's Brautfahrt by Ernst Decsey and Gustav Holm, which then became the operetta Cissy (aka Sissy or Sissi), by Hubert and Ernst Marischka, music by Kreisler. Von Sternberg said he had seen the musical in Vienna a few years before making the picture, and sources report that the rights to it were bought by Moore's husband, Spanish actor Valentin Parera, and sold to Columbia for a tidy profit. It was adapted for the screen by Sidney Buchman, the award-winning writer of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), as well as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Cleopatra (1963), and The Group (1966).

Several of Kreisler's songs were given new lyrics, and new titles, by Dorothy Fields, who never met the composer. Ms. Fields, daughter of half of the famous vaudeville team of Weber and Fields and the most successful female songwriter of Tin Pan Alley, is best known for her work with composers Jimmy McHugh ("I'm in the Mood for Love," "On the Sunny Side of the Street"), Jerome Kern (the Oscar®-winning "The Way You Look Tonight" from the Astaire-Rogers picture Swing Time, 1936), and Cy Coleman (the Broadway musical Sweet Charity).

The plot is loosely based on the true story of Empress Elizabeth of Austria. The second daughter of the Duke of Bavaria, Elizabeth accompanied her mother and older sister Helene to Austria. Her mother hoped to match the 18-year-old Helene with her 23-year-old cousin, Emperor Franz Josef, but he chose the 15-year-old Elizabeth instead. As Empress, she became known as a great beauty, world traveler, and fashion plate. In 1889, her son, Crown Prince Rudolf, and his young lover, Baroness Marie Vetsera, were found dead of a murder-suicide in Rudolf's hunting lodge, Mayerling. The incident became the basis of several movies, two of them were Hollywood productions named after the infamous lodge; the first in 1936 with Charles Boyer and Danielle Darrieux as the ill-fated lovers and another in 1968 with Omar Sharif and Catherine Deneuve, with the emperor and empress played by James Mason and Ava Gardner. Elizabeth has been a character in many stage plays and a number of other movies, notably a series of Austrian films of the 1950s based on her life starring Romy Schneider, which are shown every Christmas on German, Austrian, and French television. Schneider played the character again in Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (1972). In 1898, Elizabeth was stabbed in the heart by a young anarchist while walking along the promenade of Lake Geneva preparing to board a steamship. Unaware of the severity of her condition, she boarded the ship and died a short time later of the profuse bleeding that had been contained by the strong pressure of her tight corset.

The Tennessee-born Grace Moore made her last film in 1939, but continued a highly successful stage, concert, and recording career until her death in a plane crash in 1947 at the age of 48.

Also featured in the cast of The King Steps Out, as a young ballerina, is 11-year-old Gwen Verdon, the future Broadway and screen star making her film debut.

The film was shot by legendary cinematographer Lucien Ballard, whose career began with uncredited work on von Sternberg's Morocco (1930) and continued through the mid-80s, including notable work with Sam Peckinpah on Ride the High Country (1962), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Getaway (1972), and other films.

The most notable fact about The King Steps Out, one that even von Sternberg pointed out in his book, is that the picture and sound in the musical numbers were recorded simultaneously. Almost all musical films, before and after, required the performers to record their numbers first, then lip-sync to the playback when the picture was shot.

Director: Josef von Sternberg
Producers: William Perlberg, Wilhelm Thiele
Screenplay: Sidney Buchman
Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
Editing: Viola Lawrence
Art Direction: Stephen Goosson
Original Music: Howard Jackson
Cast: Grace Moore (Princess Elizabeth/Cissy), Franchot Tone (Emperor Franz Josef), Walter Connolly (Duke of Bavaria), Frieda Inescort (Princess Helena), Victor Jory (Captain Palfi).
BW-85m.

by Rob Nixon