CHAMPAGNE stars the bubbly Betty Balfour as a frivolous flapper whose millionaire father looks to teach her a lesson in frugality by letting her think he’s gone bankrupt. The movie brims with sight gags, with a swaying camera mimicking the roll of an ocean liner to generate several humorously queasy moments. But the comedy also has an unsettling undercurrent in the way the men in Betty’s life—her father, her fiancé, a mysterious admirer—seem eager to see her shamed. Throughout, Hitchcock revels in provocative uses of POV, including a look through the dregs of a glass of champagne that brackets the picture.”—BFI.
Appears in: The Hitchcock 9, Reel Music Festival 31
Genres: Comedy
Other Films by Alfred Hitchcock
Dial M for Murder
A fading tennis pro (Ray Milland), fearing he is losing his wife (Grace Kelly)—and most of all her money—to another man (Robert Cummings) arranges to have her murdered while fabricating the perfect alibi. But when the plot goes wrong he improvises a clever new plan – to frame her for murder instead. “A romping plot, a …
Psycho
“Phoenix, $40,000, car lot, traffic cop, Bates Motel, taxidermy, keyhole, shower, knife: every cinephile has committed these details to memory, with the composite whole long since contaminating the broader cultural imagination. Filmed in thirty days using Hitchcock’s television crew (along with indelible contributions from composer Bernard Herrmann and title designer Saul Bass), the densely pathological …
Vertigo
Topping Sight & Sound’s most recent critics’ poll of the 50 greatest films of all time, this 1958 psychological thriller was considered a critical and box office failure in its initial release. Hitchcock casts Jimmy Stewart against type as a traumatized, former San Francisco cop turned gumshoe whose chance encounter with a mysterious woman (Kim …
Rear Window
One of the most famous procedural thrillers in film history and routinely voted amongst the greatest films ever produced, Rear Window came relatively early in a long string of masterpieces from Hitchcock that all delve deeply into the American consciousness. L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies (James Stewart) is a New York magazine photographer who spends most of …
Easy Virtue
Hitch’s “wrong man” theme finds early expression in this tale of a young woman divorced by her husband after being wrongfully accused of adultery.