Champagne

I won my first prize ever recently! I retweeted a tweet about the Silent Movie Festival at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and remarkably I won. The prize was two tickets to any of the movies they were showing, so I chose to see Champagne.

Champagne was released in 1928 and is a classic black and white silent film; however, it is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s few attempts at comedy in a silent film. I had never been to a silent movie so I did not know what to expect, but the experience was different from what I am used to. Today we are used to excessive action scenes with special effects and racy language filling the movies of our time…that is part of our film legacy. This movie was simple in comparison. As I walked in I was amongst an eclectic group of individuals both young and old. I took a seat toward the front and observed a screen draped in curtains and a lone baby grand piano to the side. As the lights dimmed a man sat at the piano and began playing. The song began and transitioned keys from excited to a somber, and the tempo of the song led you through the movie’s rapidly changing mood.

Champagne was about a wealthy, naïve girl who stole her father’s airplane to crash land it in the ocean near the ship her boyfriend was onboard making it’s was to France. Upon meeting her boyfriend onboard they got into a series of quarrels and depart separately in France. Her father hears of what she has done and vows to teach her a lessons, so he hires a mysterious man to look after his daughter. In France the girl parties and buys expensive clothing when her father arrives to tell her their fortune from the Champagne business is all gone. They move into a shabby apartment and she tries to learn how to cook and find a job. All the while her boyfriend continues to show up apologizing and then they get into another fight. Eventually she finds a job in a less than respectable hotel, and when her boyfriend and father find out they come to take her away and explain that the whole lost fortune is a hoax. The girl leaves with the mysterious man because she is upset and soon regrets her decision when she finds herself locked in the cabin on the ship. After a reappearance of the boyfriend all the characters meet and get into a fight, but then makeup when all the truths are told. The father blesses the couple in marriage and then the couple proceed to get into a fight about the wedding plans…throughout the movie the characters are always consuming vast amounts of champagne so I imagine that they are drunk or have a massive hangover the entire time which would be a leading cause in all the fights and hysteria.

The movie lasted approximately two hours…and the same song was played throughout its entirety which grew slightly annoying by the end. I was impressed that the piano player could play for so long without stopping and without sheet music with only the movie to guide him. This led to a few questions though…is there designated music for each silent movie? Or is it up to the piano player? And if they aren’t using sheet music how do they know they are playing it properly?