1928
Alfred Hitchcock
Despite being dismissed as an exercise in style over substance, Champagne‘s themes feel particularly pertinent in the modern age of celebrity obsession.
Father-daughter tensions arise when a millionaire (Gordon Harker), suspecting his playgirl daughter’s fiancé is a gold-digger, pretends the family fortune is gone. A bubbly comic parable built around Betty Balfour’s effervescent energy, the film is an early example of Hitchcock’s long-term fascination with the foibles of the filthy rich (who were to him, one suspects, forever strange).
Champagne contains flashes of Hitchcock brilliance, with witty shots through a champagne glass and a disturbing sequence in which the feckless heroine imagines herself sexually assaulted by the man who (as it ultimately emerges) has been employed by her father to spy on her. The deftly observed voyeurism by this and other characters is another emblematic Hitchcock touch.
Written by Alfred Hitchcock, Eliot Stannard
Champagne features two different scores:
A piano score composed and performed by Neil Brand
A piano score composed and performed by Ben Model
Please note the Champagne is only available as part of the Hitchcock The Beginning blu-ray box-set
For the 2012 restoration of Champagne, only one source element was found, an original negative from which all surviving prints have been made. It is thought that this was a ‘2nd Negative’ made from alternative shots to the main negative as there are a number of editing idiosyncrasies. Nevertheless, some improvements were made to continuity, dissolves were re-made and full image repair and grading was completed.
A restoration by the BFI National Archive in association with STUDIOCANAL. Principal restoration funding provided by The Eric Anker-Petersen Charity. Additional funding provided by Deluxe 142.
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