The Emperor Waltz is a 1948 American musical film directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Bing Crosby and Joan Fontaine. Written by Wilder and Charles Brackett, the film is about a brash American gramophone salesman in Austria at the turn of the twentieth century who tries to convince Emperor Franz Joseph to buy a gramophone so the product will gain favor with the Austrian people. The Emperor Waltz was inspired by a real-life incident involving Franz Joseph I of Austria. Filmed in Jasper National Park in Canada, the picture premiered in London, Los Angeles, and New York in the spring of 1948, and was officially released in the United States July 2, 1948. In 1949, the film received Academy Award nominations for Best Costume Design and Best Music, as well as a Writers Guild of America Award nomination for Best Written American Musical.