In this light and lovely romantic musical, a Hungarian woman attends a Viennese fair and buys a card from a gypsy fortune teller. It says that she will meet someone important and is destined for a happy marriage. Afterward she gets a job as a baker's assistant. She then meets a handsome army drummer who secretly dreams of becoming a famous composer and conductor. Unfortunately the military forbids the young corporal to create his own music. But then Ilonka secretly sends one of the drummer's waltzes to the Austrian Emperor with his weekly order of pastries. Her act paves the way toward the tuneful and joyous fulfillment of the gypsy's prediction.
Acting
Deanna Durbin's voice could melt butter from 1940.
Costume
Every baker's assistant dressed like this? Vienna, explain.
Production
Universal's backlot 'Vienna' is aggressively, beautifully fake.
Director
Henry Koster
Deanna Durbin
Ilonka Tolnay
Robert Cummings
Corporal Harry Marten
Mischa Auer
Gustav
Henry Stephenson
Emperor Franz Joseph
S.Z. Sakall
Latislav Teschek - the Baker
Walter Catlett
Headwaiter
Anne Gwynne
Jenny
Peggy Moran
Archduchess Irene
Reginald Denny
The Major
Kenneth Brown
Moritz
Billy Lenhart
Max
Franklin Pangborn
Wiedlemeyer
Edward Gargan
Inga - the Fortune Teller
Wade Boteler
Sergeant
Samuel S. Hinds
Von Zimmel
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Deanna Durbin was Universal's biggest asset in the late 1930s—her salary eventually exceeded the studio's entire special effects budget.
This was Durbin's final film under her original contract; she renegotiated for $250,000 per picture afterward. Teen stardom paid.
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