Champagne for Caesar

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!

Excellent comedy starring comic Ronald Colman as Beauregard Bottomely, who is described as being the last scholar in America. He takes his "cornflakes with Schopenhauer", basically spends the whole day reading. Anyway he doesn't seem to do very well in the world of work, he's such a know-it-all that he doesn't last long anywhere. Believe me, and I know, correcting a boss who is talking nonsense on a matter of fact will earn you no brownie points.

One evening Beauregard goes to the TV store with his sister and the nightly crowd to watch the evening shows, specifically in his case, a science show where they send a radar beam to the moon. Afterwards there is a quiz show on that his sister forces him to watch. It's a "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" type show where you are asked 7 successive questions, each time you answer a question correctly the prize doubles. The prize is not much, it's more of a masquerade program where you dress up as a historical personage or an inanimate object, or an animal, and the questions they ask you are based on your costume, a bit of fun really.

Beauregard is (rightly) disgusted by what he presciently sees as the the herald of intellectual Armageddon: "If it is noteworthy and rewarding to know that 2 and 2 make 4 to the accompaniment of deafening applause and prizes, then 2 and 2 making 4 will become the top level of learning." Anyway quite by chance he ends up applying for a job at the company that sponsors the show, only he doesn't get it because he's too superior in the interview (not arrogant mind you, he actually is superior, but that just doesn't do in a hierarchy). When he is given the cold shoulder he decides to get his own back by appearing on the quiz show.

Hilariously, he turns up dressed as the Encylopaedia Britannica, which basically means the quizmaster can ask him any question he feels like. Of course Beauregard gets all seven question right and wins something paltry like $120. But he says he wants to continue and the showbiz guys think it will be a ratings spinner so they ask him some more questions on a next show. The problem is when the amounts of prize winning get too high and the soap company wants to take the show off the air. They make the questions more and more harder in order to get him off, but with mounting hilarity they're unable to. One question for example: "How many dental plates are there on the molar of an Asiatic elephant", Beauregard comes straight back with "24".

It's well plotted with lots of twists and a great ending, there's also a lot of unashamed raunch in the movie. You can't help but enjoy yourself, and Vince Price is simply hilarious in what is perhaps a career best performance as the anti-intellectual soap company boss Burnbridge Waters with solipsistic tendencies.

It has always amazed me what a wonderful job of casting was done on this film. Ronald Colman in a departure from his normal films, Celeste Holm as the vamp with a giggle/laugh that would keep anyone awake, Vincent Price, Art Linkletter and Barbara Britton doing what they each do so splendidly. This film was quite underrated originally, but true film buffs will enjoy the comedic plot and the great acting.

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.

There is no way that you can present a synopsis of this film that can make it appealing. Here is a film that stars Ronald Colman, Vincent Price, Celeste Holm and Art Linkletter???? The plot includes a soap company, a quiz show and a talking parrot. Not only does this film work, it is one of the most riotous comedies ever filmed.

It is the incongruity (and thus the brilliance) of the casting that makes this successful. Colman who is so well known for his romantic voice and looks and just coming off as Oscar winning performance in the dark but brilliant "A Double Life" plays Bouregard Bottomley, a man who knows "everything about everything", except how to get a job. He goes to the Milady Soap Company and is almost hired except he had the audacity to make a joke in front of company President Birnbridge Waters, played by Vincent Price. It seems that Milady sponsors a quiz program and Bottomley decides to go on as a contestant and take Price for all he is worth and thereby hangs this uproarious tale.

For all of the dramatic accomplishments by the principals, Colman, Price and Holm are tremendously funny with Price as a particular standout. He goes way over the top (similar to James Cagney in the equally as funny "One, Two, Three") but he is perfect.

The real surprise is Art Linkletter. Having made his reputation as a rather bland variety show host in radio and the early days of television, he comes off very effectively as both the quiz show and the romantic lead. This was his only acting appearance and it is too bad. He was very good.

This film demands several viewings. Often you are laughing so hard you miss some great lines.

The Champaign in the title does not go solely to Caesar (a talking parrot). It goes to all involved with this classic. Here's to you.