Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Betty Balfour, Jean Bradin, Ferdinand von Alten, Gordon Harker, Jack
Trevor, Marcel Vibert
Hitchcock: The Beginning is a new
11-disc bluray boxset from Studiocanal featuring 10 of Alfred Hitchcock's early films and a new documentary, Becoming Hitchcock, which explores the legacy of Hitchcock's first sound film,
1929's Blackmail.
In the fourth part of our 11-part review of the boxset, we look
at Champagne.
When quizzed by François Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock described
1928's Champagne as the "lowest ebb" of his career. It's
certainly no highlight, and aside from a couple of moments of technical
virtuosity, it's not remotely what we think of as a "Hitchcock picture."
Hitchcock's employers at British International Pictures suggested that he
make a movie named after the sparkling drink. Working with writers
Elliot Stannard and Walter Mycroft, Hitchcock devised a plot
centred on a young woman who works at a champagne bottling plant in
provincial France. Having never tasted champagne herself, she decides to
travel to Paris but has a nightmare in the big city and returns home,
vowing never to touch a drop of bubbly again.
BIP rejected that idea as too dark. They wanted a frothy comedy that
would exploit the comic talents of popular star Betty Balfour,
known as "the British Mary Pickford." Returning to the drawing board,
Hitchcock and Stannard came up with a romantic comedy set in high society.
Balfour plays Betty, the fun-loving, hard partying daughter of champagne
magnate Mark (Gordon Harker, getting to play an aristocrat after
previously portraying cockneys and bumpkins for Hitchcock). In the
elaborate opening sequence Betty crash lands her plane in the Atlantic,
all so she can hop aboard a passing cruise liner, where her boyfriend (Jean Bradin, whose character is solely referred to as "the Boy") is among the
passengers. Stripping off her Amelia Earhart cosplay, Betty reveals a
sparkling party outfit.
Hearing of her latest stunt and of her engagement to "The Boy," whom he
views as an opportunistic gold-digger, Mark fakes bankruptcy, cutting off
his cash flow to Betty. Forced to take a job as a flower girl in a
cabaret, Betty quarrels with her fiancé while being pursued by a sinister
older man (Ferdinand von Alten).
Champagne boasts a setup that might have gone over
gangbusters as a 1930s screwball comedy. You could imagine Barbara
Stanwyck or Carole Lombard knocking the role of Betty out of the park
while delivering some witty zingers. Without such dialogue, the scenario
just doesn't work, and watching Champagne is a lot like
looking at a series of storyboards for an unmade screwball comedy for 105
minutes. Aside from a visual pun involving a drunk walking upright as the
cruise ship rocks from side to side, Hitchcock and Stannard fail to mine
this scenario for the requisite laughs. Balfour certainly brings a
charming presence but her character suffers from the absence of the sort
of dialogue that would truly bring comic heroines to life just a few years
later.
Of course, even a bad Hitchcock movie has its moments of visual
invention. Here we get the first of the many oversized props the director
would employ to capture tricky shots. In this case it's a giant champagne
glass, through which Hitchcock's camera films in order to create the
illusion that we're seeing the POV of a thirsty mouth. A bizarre dream
sequence sees Betty imagine the mysterious man following her subjecting
her to what is now recognised as nothing less than a sexual assault. It's
a jarring moment, but one that hints at things to come later in
Hitchcock's career.
It should be noted that the version of Champagne presented
here was restored using the only resource available, a backup negative
comprised of second best takes, though it's unlikely to make any
discernible difference to the overall quality of the experience.
