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Made for British International Pictures in 1928, Champagne is a slight comedy about a millionaire's decision to teach his frivolous daughter (played by the frothy comedy actress Betty Balfour) a lesson by feigning bankruptcy.
Champagne is not among the best of Hitchcock's early works. The director himself hated the original story, by Walter Mycroft, and although the adaptation is credited to him and Eliot Stannard, he seems to have been able to do little to improve it. Close-Up magazine dismissed the results as "champagne that had been left out in the rain all night". In what was perhaps a forlorn attempt to gain some creative control, Hitchcock apparently insisted that assistant director Frank Mills dismiss all the extras who had previously appeared in The Farmer's Wife (1928), leading to a frantic search for new faces which delayed shooting by several days.
The film does however feature some interesting experimental touches, including a number of shots through a raised champagne glass, and some entertaining effects to convey the Boy's sea sickness. It also contains a disturbing, and typically Hitchcockian, assault on a young woman, which turns out to be a fantasy.
The successful comic actor Gordon Harker, as the Father, made his third successive appearance in a Hitchcock film, following The Ring (1927) and The Farmer's Wife (1928); he later appeared in Elstree Calling (1930).
Mark Duguid
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1. The watching man (2:00)
Production stills
