Tully Potter, reviewing in International Opera Collector

Three Waltzes is a 1938 film starring Yvonne Printemps and her equally charming second husband Pierre Fresnay as three generations of the same two families—each time, the son and daughter become romantically involved, with varying results. It is based on a 1937 operetta in which Printemps was having great success on the stage. The music is prepared by Oscar Straus, who uses melodic material by Johann Strauss I in the first story, Johann Strauss II in the second, and himself in the third. Printemps sings and acts in such a way that one falls in love with her all over again; Fresnay sticks to acting. The supporting cast is superb, Ludwig Berger’s direction is unerring and there are English subtitles.

A decade later, Marcel Archard wrote and directed Paris Waltz  as a vehicle for the same two stars. Fresnay is Offenbach, Printemps is his famous leading lady Hortense Schneider. Cue in lots of effervescent Offenbach music and you have another spiffing film, with several terrific supporting players and English subtitles.

John Ardoin, reviewing in The Dallas Morning News

It must have been about 1950 that I first heard of Yvonne Printemps. I was still a teenager when I was given her 78-rpm disc of one of the loveliest of songs, Martini’s Plaisir d’amour. The deep wells of expression, the urgency and the silvery tracery of her voice on that disc still haunt me. Never was a singer better named; her voice is springtime.

Little by little I managed to collect all her recordings (48 sides in all) and to learn what I could about her life and her career. She was French and one of that nation’s most beloved operetta and film figures. She has been called a Gallic Jeanette MacDonald, only she was, by all accounts, wittier and softer than Hollywood’s “iron butterfly.”

As individual as her voice was, however, I longed to put a face to it, to see one of her eight films, but that seemed to be an almost impossible dream until just a few months ago when I discovered New York’s Bel Canto Society. This is an organization devoted to singing and to films of singers. It finds the best possible print and issues it on videocassette.

The society offers two of Printemps’ most renowned films—Les trois valtes  (No. 756, a cinematic version of the Oscar Straus operetta) and Valse de Paris  (No. 754, a film biography of composer Jacques Offenbach in which Printemps plays soprano Hortense Schneider). At last I had a face to go with the voice. And what a face, what a disarming, minxlike creature she is, and what a sparkling screen personality.

It was said that Bea Lillie could read the London phone book and make you laugh. I believed Printemps could sing the Parisian listings and charm your socks off. Both films are black-and-white; neither, surprisingly, is dated in look or style; both are in sharp, superb dubs. The price is also right—$24.95 each[now $12.95 each].

“Having discovered Printemps, I quickly moved on to other of the society’s films featuring such legendary singers as Beniamino Gigli, Tito Schipa, Conchita Supervia, Maria Cebotari, Jussi Bjoerling, Jan Kiepura and Richard Tauber. There are also numerous complete operas taken from television as well as recitals, interviews and vocal potpourris.”