Champagne

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Champagne details the consequences that ensue after a spoiled heiress (Betty Balfour) defies her wealthy father by running off to elope with her (possibly gold-digging) boyfriend. It’s an awfully slight premise that’s employed to mostly watchable yet entirely forgettable effect by Hitchcock, as the filmmaker does a reasonably strong job of establishing Balfour’s nameless central character and the two men in her life – although, by that same token, it’s clear that large swaths of Champagne are focused on the protagonist’s rather uneventful shenanigans (eg she arrives on an expansive cruise ship and frolicks, she gets a job as a flower girl and frolicks, etc, etc). There’s little doubt, then, that Champagne‘s passable atmosphere is due almost entirely to Hitchcock’s typically steady directorial hand and to Balfour’s consistently appealing performance, with the inclusion of a few admittedly surprising third-act twists act ensuring, at least, that the whole thing ends better than it starts.

** out of ****