Written by Don Hartman and Frank Butler, from a story by Billy Wilder and H. S. Kraft.  Starred Jack Oakie, Fritz Leiber, Fred MacMurray.  This light musical documents the rivalry between a Vienna Waltz studio and an American Jazz band next to each other.  In Vienna, "Franz Strauss" (Leiber) stews because his waltz palace is losing business to Oakie's jazz club next door.  The headliner is Buzzy Bellew (Fred MacMurray) playing the trumpet.  While in search of chewing gum, he pretends to be the United States consul in order to romance Strauss's daughter the Opera star Elsa Strauss played by Gladys Swarthout.  Later he changes the story to an icebox salesman.  At the same time Oakie is falling for a countess who's sold him a fake silver service.  Then things gets complicated! Vintage screwball and music from the story co-authored by Billy Wilder. The mediocre music did nothing to assist Swarthout in this role. SONGS Blue Danube Waltz Could I Be In Love? When Is A Kiss Not A Kiss? Paradise In Waltz Time

The New Pictures
TIME Magazine - Jan. 25, 1937

Champagne Waltz (Paramount). The perennial and expensive effort to make a Grace Moore out of Gladys Swarthout seemed to have more logic some time ago when Miss Moore was a more important box-office draw. This version of the endeavor is a heavy-footed musical naively designed to combine the best features of jazz with those of the Viennese waltz. It concerns one Buzzy Bellew (Fred MacMurray), leader of a swing band which, reaching Vienna in a continental tour, ruins the business of the Franz & Elsa Strauss Waltz Palace. In the U. S. consulate, Elsa (Gladys Swarthout), who has gone there to...