Champagne (1928)
Country: GB
Technical: bw 86m silent
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Betty Balfour, Gordon Harker, Jean Bradin, Theo Von Alten
Synopsis:
A spendthrift heiress is taught a lesson by her Wall Street millionaire father, who pretends to be a ruined man. However, complications set in when she gets a job as a nightclub hostess, under the watchful and mutually suspicious gaze of her former fiancé and the private detective employed by her dad.
Review:
Hitchcock's uncharacteristic comedy on the dangers of too much champagne allows for a lighter treatment of his moral decline theme, explored earlier in Downhill and later in The Skin Game. There are some typically experimental uses of optical effects (to convey seasickness) and special effects (an outsize champagne glass anticipating the revolver at the end of Spellbound), but it is a minor work of only fleeting interest, notable mainly for the presence of its star, something of a personality at the time, who contributes a nuanced display of silent film acting with her 'slow burn', emotionally fickle reaction shots.
Country: GB
Technical: bw 86m silent
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Betty Balfour, Gordon Harker, Jean Bradin, Theo Von Alten
Synopsis:
A spendthrift heiress is taught a lesson by her Wall Street millionaire father, who pretends to be a ruined man. However, complications set in when she gets a job as a nightclub hostess, under the watchful and mutually suspicious gaze of her former fiancé and the private detective employed by her dad.
Review:
Hitchcock's uncharacteristic comedy on the dangers of too much champagne allows for a lighter treatment of his moral decline theme, explored earlier in Downhill and later in The Skin Game. There are some typically experimental uses of optical effects (to convey seasickness) and special effects (an outsize champagne glass anticipating the revolver at the end of Spellbound), but it is a minor work of only fleeting interest, notable mainly for the presence of its star, something of a personality at the time, who contributes a nuanced display of silent film acting with her 'slow burn', emotionally fickle reaction shots.
Country: GB
Technical: bw 86m silent
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Betty Balfour, Gordon Harker, Jean Bradin, Theo Von Alten
Synopsis:
A spendthrift heiress is taught a lesson by her Wall Street millionaire father, who pretends to be a ruined man. However, complications set in when she gets a job as a nightclub hostess, under the watchful and mutually suspicious gaze of her former fiancé and the private detective employed by her dad.
Review:
Hitchcock's uncharacteristic comedy on the dangers of too much champagne allows for a lighter treatment of his moral decline theme, explored earlier in Downhill and later in The Skin Game. There are some typically experimental uses of optical effects (to convey seasickness) and special effects (an outsize champagne glass anticipating the revolver at the end of Spellbound), but it is a minor work of only fleeting interest, notable mainly for the presence of its star, something of a personality at the time, who contributes a nuanced display of silent film acting with her 'slow burn', emotionally fickle reaction shots.