Referential? You've got to be kidding. Start with Peter Ustinov's The Love Of Four Colonels than throw in a 'borrowing' from Max Ophuls' La Ronde, made more blatant by employing the same actor Anton (Tilly)Walbrook to do the narration-to-camera. As if do divert attention from the plagiarism Powell and Pressburger cheerfully own up to taking Die Fleidermause and 'updating' it to the immediate post-war Vienna, still divided into four sections and ruled by four powers. For me, Michael Redgrave was the selling point though Iconcede that for others it may have been the Strauss operetta - it's hard to see Mel Ferrer being a draw. Whatever, it's a sort of soufflé manque and amusing in parts.

The Archers made some memorable films,but this was not one of them.To be honest I am not a lover of operetta and I just about made it to the 45 minute mark.I am sure that there has must be ecstatic to see it but I could last the film out.Maybe if they had managed to assemble their proposed all star cast it would have made it memorable.

This ingenious adaptation of the great Strauss operetta for the screen with a positive political message, that carried results, has always been grossly undervalued. For some reason it was never shown in America until 30 years after it was made. It shows all the Powell-Pressburger magic tricks in a fantasmagoria of great fun with intriguing details in every new scene. The story is rather confusing, but that's the purpose of it, and doctor Franke (Viennese, played by Anton Walbrook) is the magician controlling everything. He wakes up after a party having been placed on top of a statue as an insult to the Russians by the French (Michael Redgrave) and decides to take a comprehensive revenge. He persuades the Russian in charge (Anthony Quayle) to give a party for all involved, and the most involved of all is Rosalinda, Michael Regrave's (French) wife (Ludmila Tcherina, the primadonna of the film, like she was in their previous film "Tales of Hoffmann"),and here she repeats her very seductive role, insistently courted by the American Mel Ferrer. The funniest scene is perhaps the British representative (Dennis Price) seeing double after the party, which is clearly visualized to the audience, while the best acting is by Anthony Quayle as the pompous and very convincing Russian general, the most drunk of all. It's a party film all the way and one of the best ever made, and it was in some aspects prophetic, as the French, the British, the Americans and the Russians actually gave up their occupation of Vienna in this year, tiring of being guests staying too long and of being unnecessary occupants of such a charming and lovely city.