Champagne for Caesar

Ronald Colman, self confessed genius and bookworm extraordinary, lives in a small bungalow with sister Barbara Britton who supports both of them with giving kids piano lessons.

Colman works every now and then because frankly there isn't much call for geniuses at entry level jobs and he intimidates those in power when he does get hired. But one day a particularly arrogant head of a soap manufacturing company dismissed him without an explanation during the interview.

But Colman takes an unusual way of getting even. He goes on the company sponsored quiz program and keeps winning and winning week after week. They're going to owe him big time before he's done.

Champagne for Caesar anticipates the big money quiz show era and the celebrities they spawned by about seven years and the movie about that time, Quiz Show, by over 40. Colman is seemingly the detached man of letters that he was in The Late George Apley. But in fact he turns out to have an exceedingly good grasp on reality and the more mundane treacheries associated with every day life.

Although this is Ronald Colman's film, whenever he's on Vincent Price steals the show totally with his portrayal of the megalomaniacal soap king. It's the kind of outrageous part that actors can really chew the scenery with and Vincent Price had a full course meal.

Celeste Holm plays the femme fatale that Price hires to do Colman in and she's good at her job. But the seemingly unworldly Colman is more than up to her tricks.

Art Linkletter who was just getting nationally known as a radio and television host plays, what else, the host of Price's quiz show. Linkletter did some dramatic television work later on Wagon Train, GE Theater, and Zane Grey Theater, but this is his only feature film role as other than Art Linkletter.

Champagne for Caesar was an independent production by Harry Popkin for United Artists. Though he got great critical reviews, Colman was shorted on his money for this film by Popkin. According to his daughter Juliet's biography of her father, the lawsuit her father brought against Popkin dragged on so long that it got to be something of a family joke. It was still not settled when Colman died in 1958.

Legal problems aside, Champagne for Caesar is one very funny film and should not be missed by fans of Ronald Colman or Vincent Price.

This offbeat comedy is both entertaining and interesting. Ronald Coleman is sympathetic and amusing as the meek genius who threatens to drive a popular quiz show out of business, the rest of the cast helps out quite a bit, and the story is pleasantly goofy and unpredictable. As a satire on the 50's quiz shows, it is even more interesting in light of the more recent trivia show fads.

Coleman's low-key approach works well as the trivia genius Beauregard, and he is complemented very well by the more exaggerated performances of Celeste Holm, Art Linkletter, and especially Vincent Price, all of whom get some fine moments of their own. While the story is deliberately over-the-top, it is set up well, and while it is meant solely as light entertainment, it does have a little substance in it, too. There's a lot to like, and it makes for an enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half.

Why this movie is not considered up there with the great comedies of the 1950's is beyond me - I mean, Some Like It Hot is funny for two viewings, tops. There are scenes in this movie that never ever fail to make me laugh, and I've seen the film six or seven times by now. All of these are scenes with Vincent Price, who gives what is probably among the top five comedic performances in the history of American film here -- at least if you consider those by non-comedians. It's no surprise that Price could go over the top, as he did in all those Roger Corman horror movies, but here, it's expressly for comic effect (rather than camp effect -- not the same thing). He was at a transitional point in his career: he was through playing hunky-but-wimpy second male leads and tormented romantic heroes, and was soon to embark on his second career as Mr. Drive-In Horror Movie Star. So this is really his only true comedy performance, and he is brilliant as corporate nutjob Burnbridge Waters.

Everybody else here is great*: Ronald Colman is simply perfect as Beauregard Bottomley, an unemployable with a genius range IQ. (I am of the opinion that Alex Trebek wanted to grow up to be Ronald Colman -- not necessarily as this character, just in general). Celeste Holm is great as always as temptress Flame O'Neill, hired by Waters to rattle Colman's character to the point where he starts losing on the quiz show. She's very much in the tradition of Carole Lombard: beautiful and a super actress in anything, very adept at comedy and always intensely likable. Barbara Britton as Bottomley's sister Gwenn is another charmer, cute as a bug's ear.

*Then there's Art Linkletter: OK, he's great as the quiz show host -- he did that for a living in real life. But there's something kinda creepy about him, plus he's no matinée idol, and I always feel a little skeeved at his scenes romancing Barbara Britton. It's taken as gospel that no unattached lead character remain unattached at the end of a movie, but couldn't they have paired her off with one of Waters' employees, a cab driver, ANYBODY? OR could they have hired some second-tier pretty boy to play Linkletter's role? This is my only quibble with the film, and it's why I rate it a 9 rather than a 10.

I honestly don't know who could have played these parts better. This film is a masterpiece of casting. Colman manages to make a character who would be despised by most everyone in real life warm and sympathetic. Even his most cutting put-downs are delivered affably and without malice. He wishes to educate, not destroy, and Colman plays it dead-on.

Dated and yet timeless. Fluff with depth. A delightful paradox, well worth the price I paid for the DVD.

P.S: I bought the DVD based on the strength of the Quotes section of this IMDb listing!

On one level, Champagne for Caesar showcases the comic talent of Vincent Price and Ronald Colman in one of the best screwball comedies to come from the tail end of Hollywood's golden age. Colman and Price are not two names commonly associated with comedy but as this movie shows they should have been.

This movie deserves to be rediscovered by an audience niche who will appreciate it. On a deeper level this movie displays the willful innocence of the Fifties with a tongue-in-cheek manner. The comedy is both of it's time and mocking the institutions of its time. It is the first movie I know that examines the emerging world of television, crass commercialism and the hypocrisy and hype that it brought with it. You might consider it the grandfather of the Truman Show. A comedy that goes deeper than it first seems. Besides any comedy that uses Mel Blanc as the voice of a parrot is worth looking into.