The Music of Lifetime

This film follows the life of the "Operetta-king" from the age of four, a life which was not always a suitable theme for an operetta, but was full of success, failure and anguish. The child Kálmán Imre whistles one of Liszt's pieces faultlessly in an idyllic Austro-Hungarian, pre-World War I environment. Following a series of failures as a lawyer and a number of lost law-suits, the fantastic career, the triumphal march through Budapest and Vienna starts off. The film beautifies the annexation of Vienna in a way fit for Kálmán's operettas heard in the film, as well as the years of emigration in France and America. In the end, the plump, introverted composer is willing to wisely accept even the fact that Veruska, his wife who once used to be the member of the choir, leaves him for a younger man. (official distributor synopsis)