Based on an operetta by Johan Strauss, Oh...Rosalinda!! Is a confection, a small delight of nothingness that flitters away from the mind as soon as it's done, but it's fun while it lasts. Reminding me of Lubitsch, this is Powell and Pressburger taking the formalism and theatrical influences of The Tales of Hoffmann and bringing them down a bit, going for more modest returns on more modest sets and with more modest emotions. I think the package ends up being a modest delight, a small concoction of music and some small dance dealing with masquerade, light revenge, and attempted infidelity that becomes fidelity.
Rosalinda (Ludmilla Tcherina) is married to the French Colonel Eisenstein (Michael Redgrave) in Cold War Vienna. Eisenstein played a trick on the local Dr. Falke (Anton Walbrook) by getting him drunk and putting him on a Soviet statue, causing a small controversy that reached Moscow newsreels. Of course, Dr. Falke actually recreated the event and brought photographers because his doctoral title is honorary only and he's just a man about town in his native city. He needed the publicity. However, the trick still irks him lightly, and Dr. Falke will have his revenge, and it involves getting the four-powers military tribunal to sentence him to several days in the barracks (effectively prison), making it worse by convincing him to go to a party that night instead of reporting on time, and involving Rosalinda. An extra wrinkle gets added with Rosalinda's old lover, the American Major Frank (Dennis Price) arrives in town and tries to use Eisenstein's time in jail to woo Rosalinda.
So, the whole situation is that Eisenstein is being convinced to go to the party of the Russian General Orlovsky (Anthony Quayle) because there will be pretty ladies, Rosalinda is taking Eisenstein's absence as an excuse to reignite her relationship with Frank. It's all about infidelity, but Falke is there to make things go right in his own underhanded and scheming way.
This is where the Lubitsch (and probably Wilder) comparisons come in. Falke starts the film as The Bat, being arrested and with his little masquerade mask, and his mission is to be this playful sprite causing chaos towards a harmonious end. This is technicolor Lubitsch ground, and it's fun. That's where I end up focusing for long stretches. There's not a whole lot going on. It's a series of excuses to go from one setpiece to the next filled with song and slightly naughty merriment. It ends up a largely plot-driven exercise, probably hindered by the machinations around Frank which feel so extraneous and not all that well integrated into everything else (he gets arrested by the four-powers police because they think he's Eisenstein even though he doesn't sound at all French and probably has identification papers, but he's talked into it by Rosalinda for reasons).
And that's where the charms lie. This is not a deep exercise in a look at rekindling love. It almost seems accidental at a certain point, but if Dr. Falke is a wayward sprite, there's room for him to have these sorts of extra influences outside of his direct control. This is probably me trying to fill in gaps with some head canon, but in a light and fluffy exercise of music and production design, it doesn't seem like a completely uncalled for reaction.
And I come away with it in similar ways that I came away with many of Lubitsch's by being unable to say more than, "Isn't this grand?" Well, not quite grand. It's fun. It's not as light on its feet as Lubitsch at his best. However, we do get Powell and Pressburger expertly filming in intentionally fake looking sets (painterly is the obvious direction) all while the actors get to have fun. There's precious little dancing (apparently a sticking point for contemporary critics, especially around Tcherina's lack of dancing) which is something of a surprise considering both The Tales of Hoffman and The Red Shoes, but it doesn't bother me too much. Well, honestly, the whole thing could have been more infectious with more dancing.
So, it's light, frothy, and a bit forgettable. It's about true love conquering, all while reveling in promises of infidelity. It shows that Powell and Pressburger had a definite vision of the perfect woman (Rosalinda goes redhead when she goes in disguise to the party).
I mean, this is a mostly forgotten entry in a mostly forgotten filmography, but for those who've enjoyed Powell's work on his best known films, this is ready for reappraisal. It's fun.
