Champagne for Caesar
Encyclopedia
Champagne for Caesar is a 1950 American comedy film about a radio quiz show
, directed by Richard Whorf
and written by Fred Brady and Hans Jacoby. The movie stars Ronald Colman
, Celeste Holm
, Vincent Price
, Barbara Britton
and Art Linkletter
. The film was produced by Harry M. Popkin for his Cardinal Pictures and released by United Artists
.
) is an unemployed PhD physicist who lives in Los Angeles with his piano-instructor sister Gwenn (Barbara Britton
) and the alcohol-guzzling parrot of the film's title, Caesar. Beauregard and Gwenn live in a bungalow court, surrounded by books. Beauregard is an omnivorous reader, and is highly knowledgeable on virtually any subject - except, as he admits, how to hold a job. Beauregard obtains word of a mysterious job opportunity at the Milady Soap Company. He meets the eccentric company owner, Burnbridge Waters (Vincent Price
), for the job interview. Waters disapproves of Beauregard's humour and turns him down for the job, humiliating him in the process.
Later, in front of an appliance store window, Beauregard, Gwenn and a small crowd, none of whom have TV sets yet, watch the radio quiz show - just transferred to the new medium of television - Masquerade for Money, whose sponsor is Milady Soap. The show's format features contestants costumed as historical characters or items, who are asked questions about who or what their attire represents. The prize doubles with each successive question, in the style of the 1940s radio show The $64 Question. If anyone misses just one question, the contestant loses all that was won to that point. Beauregard is contemptuous of television and what he deems as its anti-intellectual nature, after seeing Masquarade for Money.
However, after seeing the contestants struggle to answer relatively easy questions, Beauregard plots revenge on Burnbridge Waters. He goes on the program dressed as an encyclopedia to let the host know he will answer any question given to him by the show's host, Happy Hogan (Art Linkletter
). Starting from an initial $5 prize, Beauregard easily answers the maximum five questions, then asks for a sixth question. The show runs out of time, but Beauregard promises to come back next week if people will write in to Milady Soap demanding he be allowed to return.
An avalanche of mail inspires Burnbridge Waters. He decides to call Bottomley back for one question per show - and when they've reached a new high in soap sales, the show will drop him. Masquerade for Money becomes a ratings triumph. The country tunes in each week to watch Beauregard, who appears with Caesar on the covers of Look and Life Magazines. The questions become more erudite and challenging, but Bottomley keeps answering them with ease.
With Beauregard's continuing success and increasing prize amount, Waters becomes uneasy, as the winnings will potentially erode Milady's profits. Visiting the soap factory one day, Beauregard finally explains to Waters that his ultimate goal is, first, to break Waters by winning $40 million dollars - the entire worth of Milady Soap - and thus drive Waters into bankruptcy. As Beauregard continues to answer the questions, Waters calls in "Flame" O'Neill (Celeste Holm
) to try to weaken Waters via seduction, to find a subject where his knowledge is lacking. In parallel, Happy Hogan tries to work his charms on Gwenn to see if he also can persuade her to have Beauregard simply pocket his winnings to date, by taking piano lessons with her and asking her out.
Beauregard has become ill with a cold, and Flame insinuates herself into the Bottomley household as Beauregard's nurse, pretending to be a member of his fan club. With little past experience with women, Beauregard initially succumbs to Flame's charms, and loses his general sang-froid in her presence. Gwenn is suspicious of Flame's motives, as Beauregard is suspicious of Hogan's motives in suddenly taking piano lessons with her. Neither sibling is to be deterred by the other from their respective romantic attachments. Flame, ala Delilah
, intends to seduce Bottomley to find out his Achilles' heel, a subject that will stump him. Slowly, Beauregard becomes suspicious of Flame, after his recovery. He reveals to her on one date that he (supposedly) never quite mastered Albert Einstein
's theory of relativity.
With that knowledge, the next question on Masquerade for Money is for Beauregard to explain Einstein's theory. Now realizing Flame's role in the situation, Beauregard does struggle for an answer, which he provides. However, Happy Hogan indicates that, by his answer card, the response is wrong. Waters rejoices as the studio audience groans, and Beauregard wanders into the wings, apparently defeated. However, a phone call arrives momentarily, from Einstein himself, who has been watching the show. Einstein explains that in fact, Bottomley gave the correct answer. Hogan announces the news to a now jubilant audience. Waters faints, and Bottomley is to return next week.
In the meantime, Happy appears to have genuinely fallen in love with Gwenn. Flame also has apparently developed some remorse at her part in the plot against Beauregard, and also affection for him. Waters decides to rent the Hollywood Bowl for the final question of the final show. Before the last show, with the prize stakes at $20 million, Beauregard and Gwenn decide to test each other's romantic partners and respective engagements. Each sibling telephones the respective partner to see if they would be willing to be married before the big prize day. Happy and Flame each come up with excuses for not marrying Gwenn and Beauregard before the last prize show, which deflates both siblings.
At the Hollywood Bowl, after a sardonic introduction from Waters, Beauregard comes onstage, where Happy asks for his wallet. Happy then asks a very simple question about Beauregard himself, and not about any subject in a book, namely, what is Beauregard's Social Security number. Beauregard answers incorrectly, to the tremendous relief of Waters and the disappointment of the crowd. Back home, Beauregard and Gwenn appear disappointed. However, later that evening, Happy and Flame appear, willing to marry Gwenn and Beauregard respectively after all. Waters also appears, with gifts for Beauregard. It turns out that Caesar used to be Waters' pet parrot. As Beauregard and Flame drive off to be married, Beauregard reveals that he and Waters agreed to a backroom deal where he would lose, but receive his own radio show, as well as Milady Soap stock. However, Beauregard then admits that he genuinely didn't know the answer to the simple question posed to him at the Hollywood Bowl.
, Bosley Crowther
speculated on the origin of the film's premise:
However, contemporary criticism of the story indicated that the film violated Beauregard's criticism of the nature of quiz shows in its final plot twist, with Beauregard being given his own quiz show.
Nicholas Laham has analysed the treatment of Beauregard as a highly educated, yet unemployable, character in the context of how scholars were regarded in the 1950s, and in anticipation of the unemployment of information-based, highly educated people in later decades in the information age/"new economy". Laham also places Champagne for Caesar in the historical lineage of screwball comedy
, over a decade after that genre had reached its peak before World War II
.
Quiz Show
Quiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film produced and directed by Robert Redford. Adapted by Paul Attanasio from Richard Goodwin's memoir Remembering America, the film is based upon the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s...
, directed by Richard Whorf
Richard Whorf
Richard Whorf was an American actor, author, director, and designer.Richard was born in Winthrop, Massachusetts to Harry and Sarah Whorf. Richards's older brother was the well-known American linguist, Benjamin Lee Whorf. Whorf began his acting career on the Boston stage as a teenager then moving...
and written by Fred Brady and Hans Jacoby. The movie stars Ronald Colman
Ronald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...
, Celeste Holm
Celeste Holm
Celeste Holm is an American stage, film, and television actress, known for her Academy Award-winning performance in Gentleman's Agreement , as well as for her Oscar-nominated performances in Come to the Stable and All About Eve...
, Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
, Barbara Britton
Barbara Britton
Barbara Britton was an American film and television actress.She was the first actress to play Laura Petrie on television on the pilot program, Head of the Family, which was retooled and became The Dick Van Dyke Show with the role taken over by Mary Tyler Moore. The California native signed a film...
and Art Linkletter
Art Linkletter
Arthur Gordon "Art" Linkletter was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of House Party, which ran on CBS radio and television for 25 years, and People Are Funny, on NBC radio-TV for 19 years...
. The film was produced by Harry M. Popkin for his Cardinal Pictures and released by United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
.
Plot
Beauregard Bottomley (Ronald ColmanRonald Colman
Ronald Charles Colman was an English actor.-Early years:He was born in Richmond, Surrey, England, the second son and fourth child of Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. His siblings included Eric, Edith, and Marjorie. He was educated at boarding school in Littlehampton, where he...
) is an unemployed PhD physicist who lives in Los Angeles with his piano-instructor sister Gwenn (Barbara Britton
Barbara Britton
Barbara Britton was an American film and television actress.She was the first actress to play Laura Petrie on television on the pilot program, Head of the Family, which was retooled and became The Dick Van Dyke Show with the role taken over by Mary Tyler Moore. The California native signed a film...
) and the alcohol-guzzling parrot of the film's title, Caesar. Beauregard and Gwenn live in a bungalow court, surrounded by books. Beauregard is an omnivorous reader, and is highly knowledgeable on virtually any subject - except, as he admits, how to hold a job. Beauregard obtains word of a mysterious job opportunity at the Milady Soap Company. He meets the eccentric company owner, Burnbridge Waters (Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
), for the job interview. Waters disapproves of Beauregard's humour and turns him down for the job, humiliating him in the process.
Later, in front of an appliance store window, Beauregard, Gwenn and a small crowd, none of whom have TV sets yet, watch the radio quiz show - just transferred to the new medium of television - Masquerade for Money, whose sponsor is Milady Soap. The show's format features contestants costumed as historical characters or items, who are asked questions about who or what their attire represents. The prize doubles with each successive question, in the style of the 1940s radio show The $64 Question. If anyone misses just one question, the contestant loses all that was won to that point. Beauregard is contemptuous of television and what he deems as its anti-intellectual nature, after seeing Masquarade for Money.
However, after seeing the contestants struggle to answer relatively easy questions, Beauregard plots revenge on Burnbridge Waters. He goes on the program dressed as an encyclopedia to let the host know he will answer any question given to him by the show's host, Happy Hogan (Art Linkletter
Art Linkletter
Arthur Gordon "Art" Linkletter was a Canadian-born American radio and television personality. He was the host of House Party, which ran on CBS radio and television for 25 years, and People Are Funny, on NBC radio-TV for 19 years...
). Starting from an initial $5 prize, Beauregard easily answers the maximum five questions, then asks for a sixth question. The show runs out of time, but Beauregard promises to come back next week if people will write in to Milady Soap demanding he be allowed to return.
An avalanche of mail inspires Burnbridge Waters. He decides to call Bottomley back for one question per show - and when they've reached a new high in soap sales, the show will drop him. Masquerade for Money becomes a ratings triumph. The country tunes in each week to watch Beauregard, who appears with Caesar on the covers of Look and Life Magazines. The questions become more erudite and challenging, but Bottomley keeps answering them with ease.
With Beauregard's continuing success and increasing prize amount, Waters becomes uneasy, as the winnings will potentially erode Milady's profits. Visiting the soap factory one day, Beauregard finally explains to Waters that his ultimate goal is, first, to break Waters by winning $40 million dollars - the entire worth of Milady Soap - and thus drive Waters into bankruptcy. As Beauregard continues to answer the questions, Waters calls in "Flame" O'Neill (Celeste Holm
Celeste Holm
Celeste Holm is an American stage, film, and television actress, known for her Academy Award-winning performance in Gentleman's Agreement , as well as for her Oscar-nominated performances in Come to the Stable and All About Eve...
) to try to weaken Waters via seduction, to find a subject where his knowledge is lacking. In parallel, Happy Hogan tries to work his charms on Gwenn to see if he also can persuade her to have Beauregard simply pocket his winnings to date, by taking piano lessons with her and asking her out.
Beauregard has become ill with a cold, and Flame insinuates herself into the Bottomley household as Beauregard's nurse, pretending to be a member of his fan club. With little past experience with women, Beauregard initially succumbs to Flame's charms, and loses his general sang-froid in her presence. Gwenn is suspicious of Flame's motives, as Beauregard is suspicious of Hogan's motives in suddenly taking piano lessons with her. Neither sibling is to be deterred by the other from their respective romantic attachments. Flame, ala Delilah
Delilah
Delilah appears only in the Hebrew bible Book of Judges 16, where she is the "woman in the valley of Sorek" whom Samson loved, and who was his downfall...
, intends to seduce Bottomley to find out his Achilles' heel, a subject that will stump him. Slowly, Beauregard becomes suspicious of Flame, after his recovery. He reveals to her on one date that he (supposedly) never quite mastered Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
's theory of relativity.
With that knowledge, the next question on Masquerade for Money is for Beauregard to explain Einstein's theory. Now realizing Flame's role in the situation, Beauregard does struggle for an answer, which he provides. However, Happy Hogan indicates that, by his answer card, the response is wrong. Waters rejoices as the studio audience groans, and Beauregard wanders into the wings, apparently defeated. However, a phone call arrives momentarily, from Einstein himself, who has been watching the show. Einstein explains that in fact, Bottomley gave the correct answer. Hogan announces the news to a now jubilant audience. Waters faints, and Bottomley is to return next week.
In the meantime, Happy appears to have genuinely fallen in love with Gwenn. Flame also has apparently developed some remorse at her part in the plot against Beauregard, and also affection for him. Waters decides to rent the Hollywood Bowl for the final question of the final show. Before the last show, with the prize stakes at $20 million, Beauregard and Gwenn decide to test each other's romantic partners and respective engagements. Each sibling telephones the respective partner to see if they would be willing to be married before the big prize day. Happy and Flame each come up with excuses for not marrying Gwenn and Beauregard before the last prize show, which deflates both siblings.
At the Hollywood Bowl, after a sardonic introduction from Waters, Beauregard comes onstage, where Happy asks for his wallet. Happy then asks a very simple question about Beauregard himself, and not about any subject in a book, namely, what is Beauregard's Social Security number. Beauregard answers incorrectly, to the tremendous relief of Waters and the disappointment of the crowd. Back home, Beauregard and Gwenn appear disappointed. However, later that evening, Happy and Flame appear, willing to marry Gwenn and Beauregard respectively after all. Waters also appears, with gifts for Beauregard. It turns out that Caesar used to be Waters' pet parrot. As Beauregard and Flame drive off to be married, Beauregard reveals that he and Waters agreed to a backroom deal where he would lose, but receive his own radio show, as well as Milady Soap stock. However, Beauregard then admits that he genuinely didn't know the answer to the simple question posed to him at the Hollywood Bowl.
Discussion
In his 1950 review of the film in The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
speculated on the origin of the film's premise:
"This corner gratefully remembers an old New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
cartoon in which a triumphant quiz-show contestant, surrounded by loot which she had won, was ruefully being announced the winner of control of the sponsor's company. It was a very funny cartoon — a very shrewd and fantastic conceit — in which the monstrous extravagance of quiz shows was swiftly and neatly ridiculed. And apparently Hans Jacoby and Fred Brady remembered it, too, for their screen play for Champagne for Caesar is a mere elaboration of this idea."
However, contemporary criticism of the story indicated that the film violated Beauregard's criticism of the nature of quiz shows in its final plot twist, with Beauregard being given his own quiz show.
Nicholas Laham has analysed the treatment of Beauregard as a highly educated, yet unemployable, character in the context of how scholars were regarded in the 1950s, and in anticipation of the unemployment of information-based, highly educated people in later decades in the information age/"new economy". Laham also places Champagne for Caesar in the historical lineage of screwball comedy
Screwball Comedy
Screwball Comedy is an album by the Japanese band Soul Flower Union. The album found the band going into a simpler, harder-rocking direction, after several heavily world-music influenced albums.-Track listing:...
, over a decade after that genre had reached its peak before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Cast
|
Lyle Talbot Lyle Talbot , born Lisle Henderson, was an American actor on stage and screen, best known for his long career in movies from 1931 to 1960 and for his frequent appearances on TV in the 1950s and '60s, including his decade-long role as Joe Randolph on television's The Adventures of Ozzie and... (Executive #2) Mel Blanc Melvin Jerome "Mel" Blanc was an American voice actor and comedian. Although he began his nearly six-decade-long career performing in radio commercials, Blanc is best remembered for his work with Warner Bros... (Caesar (voice)) |