Champagne Charlie


58m 1936

Film Details

Release Date
May 8, 1936
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.
Distribution Company
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.
Country
United States

Technical Specs

Duration
58m
Film Length
approximately 5,300ft (6 reels)

Synopsis

On an ocean liner leaving New York for Paris, heiress Linda Hollingsworth, who is on a double honeymoon with her husband Tod and her friend Lillian and Lillian's fourth husband, recognizes one of the bartenders, Mr. Fipps, who used to be the valet to the deceased Champagne Charlie. When she, Lillian and Fipps drink a toast to Charlie, Tod is uncomfortable. After the newlyweds leave the bar, Fipps recognizes a rough-looking patron, Pedro Gorini. Following a phone call from Gorini to Linda, which interrupts a passionate embrace from Tod, who thinks she still carries a torch for Charlie, Linda agrees to Gorini's demand that unless she come to his cabin, he will expose her past to the newspapers. While Gorini, still on the phone with Linda, demands money which, he says, she and Charlie cost him a year ago, Fipps enters, and later, when Linda arrives, she sees Fipps and Gorini struggling. Subsequently, Fipps confesses to the captain of the ship that he killed Gorini; however, Linda denies this and tells the captain the story of her involvement with Champagne Charlie: One year earlier, Linda, a spoiled heiress who loves to gamble and is engaged to Tod, her childhood sweetheart, meets Charlie Cortland while playing roulette in Monte Carlo with Lillian. Charlie, a gambler whose passion is champagne and whose air of European elegance and nonchalance greatly appeals to Linda, has lost $200,000 belonging to his backers, Gorini and Ivan Suchine, over the past year. When Suchine reads that Linda has a million dollar dowry, he convinces Charlie to marry her so that they could split the dowry and says he would then tear up Charlie's IOUs. Linda, who is upset at Tod's constant nagging concerning her gambling, falls in love with Charlie as they travel throughout Europe together in the next few weeks. When she tells Charlie that she must return to New York to attend a board of directors' meeting, he proposes, and they plan to be wed in the same room in which her mother was married. In New York, Tod, jealous and drunk, accosts Charlie. Charlie easily knocks Tod out and then brings him to his hotel, where Tod becomes convinced that Charlie really loves Linda. That night, at a symphony, Charlie recognizes a medallion cross on a necklace Linda wears, which belonged to her mother. After the concert, Linda reveals that she really is the daughter of a broken-down Russian refugee. Her mother died soon after her birth, she says, and to save her from scandal after her father became involved with a married woman, her great aunt adopted her and gave her her name of Craig. Deciding not to disgrace Linda, Charlie plans to leave and tells Gorini and Suchine that he and Linda are going to elope to Connecticut to marry. When Linda's entrance interrupts their conversation and Gorini and Suchine see that the elopement plans are a surprise, albeit pleasant, to Linda, their suspicions are aroused and they demand to follow Charlie and Linda's car to be witnesses at the wedding. During the ride, Charlie confesses the scheme to Linda, who does not believe him. When the other car is out of sight, Charlie slows down and pushes Linda out. Gorini then throws his knife at Charlie, and Charlie's convertible crashes killing him. As Linda concludes her story to the captain, she says that after Charlie's death, she learned that before her parents' marriage, Charlie had been secretly engaged to her mother, but that her mother's parents made her marry her father, a Russian prince. Charlie, who after the marriage served in the Foreign Legion during World War I, later built up his reputation as Champagne Charlie. When he learned Linda was the daughter of the woman he once loved, he could not go through with the scheme. Linda's feeling is that Charlie crashed the car on purpose. After Linda relates that Gorini fell on his own knife while he struggled with Fipps, the captain decides to call the death an accident and orders champagne for himself, Linda and Fipps.

Film Details

Release Date
May 8, 1936
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.
Distribution Company
Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.
Country
United States

Technical Specs

Duration
58m
Film Length
approximately 5,300ft (6 reels)

Quotes

Trivia

Notes

According to a Hollywood Reporter news item, retakes on this film were shot sporadically over a period of six months due to the unavailability at various times of cast members Herbert Mundin, Minna Gombell and Noel Madison. Motion Picture Herald commented that the film "parallels the actual life experiences of an American million dollar princess whose marital affairs made sensational news material and the tragedy that was the aftermath of one of them made international front page headlines." No information has been located to determine the identity of the "princess."