Champagne (1928)

Of the six (out of surviving 8) silent films of Hitchcock that I have seen, this is the worst. It is dull, dull, dull, practically plot-less, and a crashing bore.It would seem Hitch did not do well with early films in which the protagonist was a woman. In THE PLEASURE GARDEN and EASY VIRTUE, both centered around women, I found equally uninteresting plots, plodding and repetitive scenes, and little of interest in either the performances or the narrative. His best so far have been the back-to-back films with Ivor Novello, THE LODGER and DOWNHILL.Balfour in the lead has no acting talent it would seem. Her one expression is an inane smile. Jean Bradin as the boyfriend is good-looking, but also has one expression, a frown. The father, played by Gordon Harker, likewise has one expression, anger. The most interesting character is the stranger, played by Ferdinand Van Alten, who remains enigmatic throughout, popping up now and then, for no apparent reason (until the denouement). He so resembles David Suchet, we assume he is Poirot on a holiday and expecting any one of the leads to be murdered at any moment.Would that that had happened. They all deserved it for their dullness, and at least it would have been more of a Hitchcockian development plot-wise.There are the usual handful of clever cinematic and editing effects Hitch likes to employ: the close-up of the champagne cork popping; the view of a room through the upturned glass of champagne (in fact several individual points of view of scenes); the theft of the jewelry case – a tracking shot at below waist level; the dissolve of the expensive bed sheet to an everyday cotton table cloth; dancers going from live action to a still photo with pull back to display it in a store window, etc.These are only for Hitchcock devotees. As a film, it is very weak and ponderous and for a comedy, not a laugh in it. Unless you are a fan of the director, I would avoid it.

Hitchcock was one of cinema's most aggressively experimental film makers, a fact largely unnoticed because, first, he worked largely in known genres rather than straight drama, and also because many of his experiments worked so well, they were adopted everywhere as conventions of film making. But when his experiments fail, they scream out for attention.Champagne is one of the latter, pretty much a failure in terms of everything but the camera work. The main story is the the main problem. There's nothing about the characters' little problem here - and it's a very little problem when you think about it - that would lead us to grow concerned about their resolution to it. That gives us an unfortunate opportunity to ask whether we actually find the characters appealing - and we don't. The father is vile, his friend is vile, the lover is an airhead, the daughter is an airhead. So we're left with more than an hour of vile airheads trying to determine what virtue among the wealthy might be. As if they could possibly know.Strong, intelligent women do not make much of an appearance in Hitchcock's silent films; the young Hitchcock had an ambiguous attitude towards women, whom he frequently presented as both victims of male cruelty and simpering imbeciles. That's very much in evidence here.And Hitchcock struggled artistically with what may have been a real personality problem his whole life - the one word that can link all of his films is 'paranoia.' No one can be fully trusted in a Hitchcock film, making his world a treacherous place, even in his 'comedies' - the real "Trouble with Harry" (in that film) is not that he's dead, but that nobody gives a dam' that he is.This paranoia informs this supposed comedy throughout, as well, and in fact defines its experimental nature - Hitchcock repeatedly paints his characters with ominous shadings, setting up scenes of potential violence, potential madness, potential rape; fortunately none of which ever happens - but we're supposed to laugh at this?! My sense is that this was the question Hitchcock wanted to raise, that's the experiment going on here. But nobody really wants that question raised, answering it doesn't give us a very good time.Lesser Hitchcock, to be sure.

Silent. Black & white. Hitch said it was his worst movie. But still...I watched "Champagne" three times in four days now, and can't get tired of it. Of course it's almost 80 years old, and far away from the world of 2007. But it made me curious. Betty Balfour is just such a cutie in her very various acts. (Reminds me somehow of German chancelloress Angela Merkel, but never mind.) Although it's mostly a comedic romance, there are indications of Hitch things to come - in the cabaret, staircase scenes, and a 360 degree shot that I before thought was pioneered in Frankenheimer's "Manchurian Candidate" (1962).Betty was extremely charming and versatile here (I'd love to see some Squibs, her most famous movies...), but after the introduction of talkies she was more Rain than Singing. Anyway, this snapshot conserves special moments (the dress-changing, the rolling of the dough, the chair dance, ...) Highly recommended if you go for museum pieces (and "read lips" instead of waiting for inter-titles). Not everybody's taste, but surely mine :^)

I'll be doing more of these user comments as I own the whole collection of Alfred Hitchcock. I just received "Under Capricorn" from Chapters and can now say I own all 53 movies. I will only comment on the ones that are not so popular.Anyways, Champagne hardly kept my interest as it was a silent film with not enough written dialog for the viewer to see. I saw a few humorous scenes and two intense scenes and that's all. They weren't very long and the story I felt was weak. There was the man, played by Theo Von Alten who looked through the champagne glass as was to introduce the story and really one of the few Hitchcock touches and it also ended with the man looking through the champagne glass to end the story.I wasn't sure if the man was going to rape/kill the girl, played by Betty Belfour which happened to be intense until she ran away. Also at the end where the man and the boy, played by Jean Bradin were fighting and the boy tried strangling the man. That was short lived as it was explained the man was hired by the father, played by Gordon Harker to prevent his daughter from eloping.The comedy scene was the drunkard not being affected by the waves below the ship but everyone else. Also, the girl seeing everyone else have a good time and wanted to join with her big smile and fast moving hips but her boy wouldn't let her. Also, when the father was reading the papers and smoking his cigar or pipe (I can't remember) he was hilarious I thought.The boy was always low key or pessimistic as he felt he was in control and wanted to arrange the wedding details. This always bothered the girl and always put tension between the girl and the boy. You can say it wasn't a match made in heaven.I only wish the dialog spoken in silence on the screen was displayed more in writing and we could have understood more of the story. Alfred Hitchcock said he believed "Champagne" was his worst movie and I tend to agree.