It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

In 1949, when this was released, the terms of the Cold War had been reasonably well clarified. A huge vacuum had been left by the collapse of the Nazi Reich and arguments followed over the question of how to divide it up between the several victors.This film incorporates many of the more important issues, at least as we perceived and interpreted those issues at the time. The in conflict in occupied Austria is personalized in the atheistic military sensibilities of Walter Pidgeon, the simple faith of Mother Superior Ethel Barrymore, and the sneering treachery of Louis Calhern as Colonel Piniev. To maintain the interest of those who are bored by politics, there is the tragic romance between British officer Peter Lawford and the yummy displaced person Janet Leigh. The conflict boils down to what should be done with Leigh. The orders are to repatriate her and turn her over to the Soviet Union.There is a masterful film out there covering some of these issues. That film is called "The Third Man." This one is full of stereotypes involving politics, religion, and love. Ho hum.Brothers and sisters, this is really preachy. The Russians show no humanity, no remorse. The British sometimes bumble but play fair and are earnest about their humanitarianism. They're gently guided in the right direction by the quiet and elliptical remarks of the lovable old Mother Superior. The conflicts are real enough. Who wanted to live in the USSR under the brutal regime of Stalin? But there are ideological arguments between Pidgeon and Calhern, the latter sounding like a wind-up mannequin programmed to spout Marxism for Dummies. It has three things going for it. Nice shots of a C 47 taking off and landing, the perky presence of Angela Lansbury, and it serves as a peek into the past, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, a kind of cinematic time capsule. It should be shown in all high school classes. Not only as a picture of historical reality but as a splendid example of propaganda. The Russians were producing similar films at the same time. (They were shown in Europe but never in the US.) During and preceding the war, Germany made the same kind of movies. All of them clearly identified the good guys and the bad guys, just like in a John Wayne Western from the 30s. Thinking was treated as an irritant, whereas, as Charles Sanders Peirce observed, "belief is thought at rest."

**SPOILERS** What struck me most about the film "The Red Danube" was the very strong religious implications in it. We have British Colonel Michael "Hooky" Nicobar, Walter Pidgeon, who's lost faith in an Almighty when his son who was preparing to study for the priesthood ended up getting shot down and killed over Germany in a bombing run. Being the good soldier that he is in following his superiors orders without question Col. Nicobar is later involved in deporting back to the USSR 21 year-old ballerina Maria Buhlen, Janet Leigh, without as much as a second thought! That despite Maria, who's real name is Olga Alexandrova, facing spending the rest of her life in a Soviet Gulag for leaving her country, the Soviet Union, without permission.It's only after exiled Soviet scientist Prof. Serge Bruloff, Konstatin Shayne, blew his brains out in order to prevent him from being repatriated back to his "Mother Land" that Col. Nicobar started having second thoughts about the good will of his Soviet allies in Vienna where he's stationed. As for the luckless Maria she did manage to escapes being sent back, via cattle car, to the USSR by getting herself hidden for a while in a Vienna church as a nun. It was later on the promise of Red Army Col. Piniev also known as "Pinhead" to his friends, Louis Calhern, that Maria would be treated as a national hero, by his boss Marshall Stalin, back in Moscow that Col. Nicobar agreed to turn her over to him. Maria, not being fooled at all by Col. "Piniev's promises, fully knows that she's instead slated to be be shot for being a traitor of the Soviet Union! Knowing what she's facing Maria jumps out a two story window and ends up killing herself!It's then that the Mother Superior, Ethel Barrymore of the church-the Order of the Daughters of the Holy Ghost that was hiding Maria during her exile in Vienna came to Col. Nicobar's rescue and showed him the way to redeem himself. This was by Col. Nicobar mistakingly, as if the Lord was secretly guiding him, taking a British General's, played by Alan Napier, star studded overcoat on his trip to Rome with the Mother Superior, in her being in the presence of a British General Officer, tagging along with him! It was that brazen act on Col. Nicobar part, that he in fact had absolutely no knowledge of, that turned things around not just for him but the United Nations who, in seeing what the Soviets were doing to their citizens in Vienna, rescinded the order to repatriate Russian citizens back to the Soviet Union! That's to prevent them from facing either curtain death or a life sentence in a Siberian Gulag.***SPOILERS*** What turned out to be the biggest surprise or miracle of all was that the now reborn, in seeing the light, and former agnostic Col. Nicobar who was facing dismissal from the army for him disobeying a direct order, in refusing to turn over Russian citizens back to their "Mother Land", and even a possible stretch behind bars in the stockade was given a promotion to Brigadier General! The now befuddled and promoted General Nicobar, in him not quite grasping what was going on all abound him, was then put in charge of seeing that all this, sending Soviet citizens back to Stalin's Russia, was kept from happening! P.S There's also in the movie British heartthrob actor, whom all the women in it were just nuts about, Peter Lawford as Col. Nicobar's good friend Maj. John "Twingo" MePhimister. "Twingo" both fell in love with the pretty Maria and tried unsuccessfully to keep her from being deported back to the Soviet Union which she, by killing herself, not him prevented from happening.

I found the film captivating. It addresses subjects such as faith and morality, and the conflict between being both a soldier and a human being. It gives no easy answers. It presents a piece of history rarely shown in film, and attempts to side-step making everything black and white. Yet The Red Danube is, foremost, good entertainment, a tale of love in the midst of war. Focusing on entertainment is necessary in the entertainment business, and the film does it well, with a few gratifying twists, too. Walter Pigeon and Ethel Barrymore are their grandest dignified selves. Sometimes its nice to be able to be reminded what that is. Interesting to note that Ethel Barrymore was seventy years old when making this film.

The underlying theme of the movie -- Uncle Joe Stalin's mania for grabbing displaced people he wanted after WWII -- is unusual, and the cast is an odd lot: Walter Pidgeon as a one-armed British colonel with plenty of war guilt; Janet Leigh's starlet turn as a Russian ballerina; Angela Lansbury as a young and saucy WREN; and, as the strangest casting, Ethel Barrymore as a nun. Plenty of Cold War anti-Red flavoring throughout that looks pretty stilted today, but the acting -- especially from Pidgeon in the lead -- is heartfelt without being maudlin.