Champagne (1928)

Champagne (1928), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Another of his early silent films. A slight story but some good shots and an interesting look at 1920s club life.

A spoiled rich girl steals her father's seaplane so she can catch up with an ocean liner carrying her boyfriend. Once there the seaplane sinks. On board she flits between the boyfriend, an earnestly serious young man, and an older gentleman who is obviously a sexual predator.

In France her father arrives to tell her they are broke. He's lying but it's for her own good; he wants to teach her a lesson. They set up housekeeping and surprise! She actually enjoys taking care of him. But she has to find a job and that is pretty dismal.

A pretty girl who knows rich men has a way out, but that is a dismal prospect too. If only that young man would show up again. But when he does and suspects she is already a prostitute, what is injured pride to do but run off with the predator? Oops. Mistake.

A happy ending is arranged in the last five minutes which I will not attempt to summarize. And then a nicely Hitchcockian final few seconds, ominous intimations.

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