User reviews

Satire is a difficult form to realize on film. I first defined the term years since as the idea-level or explicit-idea form of comedy. In satire, the ending cannot be a bad one for the central character because he/she possess sufficient mental capabilities to overcome (eventually) any opposition being offered. "Champagne For Caesar" (the hero's parrot) is such a film, I suggest. By many people's standards, it is also one of the most hilarious films ever made. The storyline is a simple one. A human encyclopedia, Ronald Colman, decides to take part on an early televised TV quiz show sponsored by a soap company run by Burnbridge Waters, played by Vincent Price. Once he wins their top prize, he challenges them to let him go on and on, and bowing to public pressure, the executive does. The hero is thrown a curve in the person of Flame O'Neill, Celeste Holm; what happens next provides the film's climax. Will Beaurgeard Bottomley end up running the company and win the grand prize? Will he and Flame ever get together? Will Waters be sent to an asylum or continue his course of selling soap? The entire cast is very good in this film; even announcer Art Linkletter brings off the role of the quiz show's host while romancing lovely Barbara Britton, the boss's daughter. Colman, Price and Holm are priceless. The direction by actor Richard Whorf is perhaps his best ever; the music by Dimitri Tiomkin and art direction by George Van Marten are bright and exactly right at every point. What in lesser hands could have become a parody here finds the makers' choosing their targets for satirization on a basis of very wrong ideas--the advertising industry in the US being a Hollywood favorite in this regard, in such films as "Good Neighbor Sam" and "The Thrill of It All" and many more. This film remains one of Hollywood's funniest and most affectionately remembered satirical treasures.

Who knew that Vincent Price could do comedy? To me, he is just hilarious in this movie. I especially love the scene where he is in the isolation booth watching to see how far Ronald Colman can get in his quest of winning the contest. Too bad this movie, and especially Mr. Price wasn't nominated for an Academy Award because it is a really funny film. I suppose to some people Vincent Price's performance in this film is a bit on the "hammy" side, it is exactly that way of overacting which makes it fun to watch him. Thank goodness I found this on DVD and can watch it anytime I want. Ronald Colman is also very good in one of his last films. Good performances by Celeste Holm and surprisingly by Art Linkletter!!

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!

Rarely have I seen a film fall apart midway through the picture--but that's exactly how I felt about "Champagne for Caesar". The first portion was clever and enjoyable but later, after they introduce a wicked woman, the film just seemed to fizzle--mostly because the writing seemed to fall apart.

When the film begins, Beauregard Bottomly (Ronald Colman) goes to get a job with a soap company. Unfortunately, the boss (Vincent Price) is a nuts...and fires him for no real reason at all. Naturally Beauregard is upset and he determines to destroy the company. So, he goes on the radio quiz show sponsored by the soap company and begins to win...and win...and win. He plans to keep coming back week after week in order to put the company out of business. Soon his plan looks like it's going to work and the company decides to end the show. But the public is furious and no one buys the soap...and so the company is forced to put the show back on the air and have Bottomly return. So what can they do to stop the guy?

At this point, I was really enjoying the film (aside from the dopey parrot). However, when the soap company unleashed its secret weapon in the form of a woman to woo and thoroughly distract Bottomly, the film bottomed out. Celeste Holm was a fine actress--but the part they wrote for her was awful. She played it very broadly and why the super- genius Beauregard would fall for her too obvious shtick was a HUGE problem for me. All through the film he had been self-assured, brilliant and could read right through the soap company's machinations. But then, we are to assume he's downright stupid...and her routine was just dumb. The film also seemed to drag on way too long at this point.

So what do we have? A highly uneven film that could have easily been a lot better. It also featured a really, really dumb parrot. Overall, too broadly written to be anything more than a time-passer.

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 is a must for Vincent Price fans. He is wonderfully loony here and gets to do some great physical comedy and emoting. I liked his final scene in particular. Colman has aged well and delivers his lines beautifully, and the movie's main idea - the "last scholar" fighting against cultural idiocracy - is clever and still relevant now, even if we have to suspend our disbelief about Beauregard's unemployment (why isn't he working in academia?). All in all, I really enjoyed the first half. After that, unfortunately, the "honey trap/love interest" was introduced, presumably because the initial idea was thought insufficient to fill a feature film, or because a love interest is mandatory for a comedy. It was so dumb and unbelievable that my mind wandered during the second half whenever Price wasn't on screen. The other big problem in my opinion is the casting of the unfortunately named "Happy Hogan". Since all four female characters described him as a "dreamboat" and/or "cute", you would expect a young fellow at least as good-looking as Rock Hudson. Instead, he was middle-aged and had the kind of face only a mother could love, plus the ugliest hat known to humanity. In a looks-obsessed industry, with so many young would-be actor/models, how could this casting decision happen? If you are out there, Beauregard, please send me the answer!

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.

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.

1950's "Champagne for Caesar" serves as a time capsule on life in the late 1940s, when radio quiz shows were vastly popular and ready to make the jump to television. "Masquerade for Money" is the nation's top quiz show, allowing contestants to earn a modest total of $160 each week just by correctly answering basic questions, the brainchild of Milady Soap president Burnbridge 'Dirty' Waters (Vincent Price), making a star out of its host, Happy Hogan (Art Linkletter). At the film's center is Beauregard Bottomley (Ronald Colman), a certified genius with several degrees but not the ability to secure suitable employment, his attempt to amuse Waters at Milady Soap earning only derision from the humorless executive. This intended slight spurs Bottomley into action, exploding on to the show disguised as an encyclopedia, supplying all the right answers and insisting on continuing the following week. His popularity not only increases the show's ratings but also Milady's profits, but every right answer doubles his winnings until he is now in position to bankrupt his rattled nemesis and take over the company. Waters tries an ace up his sleeve in an attempt to distract Bottomley, calling upon a cold hearted female genius (Celeste Holm) to probe for his Achilles heel. This is the point where the soap satire degenerates into soap opera, doubly so since Bottomley's sister Gwenn (Barbara Britton) is being courted by Happy Hogan, a downturn that never proves fatal but does diminish the laughs. Caesar is a dipsomaniac parrot who prefers champagne to a cracker, and though Mel Blanc is credited with the voice it's definitely someone else. Vincent Price enjoys one of his most delightful roles, occasionally 'spaced out' in his own little world, and able to keep up with the esteemed Ronald Colman (the two would be reunited for Colman's last film, 1957's "The Story of Mankind").

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.

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.

I haven't seen this for years so my mind is a little sketchy on the exact plot but it goes something like this: Beauregard Bottomley (Ronald Colman) a VERY intelligent man goes on a radio quiz show. He keeps answering all the questions correctly and gets more and more money. The show's creator (Vincent Price) wants to stop him. Celeste Holm plays the obligatory love interest.

Just great. Who thought Price could do comedy? He's absolutely hilarious on screen. He's clearly having the time of his life and it rubs off on the audience. It basically reaches the point when he appears on screen you start grinning. His reaction when Albert Einstein calls the show to correct an answer to a question is uproarious.

Also it has a great, intelligent script with one-liners flying fast and furious. Colman and Holm are good also but it's Prices movie all the way through.

Unfortunately this remains virtually unknown. It is on DVD but it's in terrible shape with bad sound and a very worn print. Hopefully it will get a proper restoration someday.

Ronald Colman is given a really stupid name for this film - "Beauregard"! What a crap name. He is also way too old. He's about 20 years older than everyone else. This film asks us to believe that his sister is 20 years younger than him (ludicrous!) and that his girlfriend is 20 years younger than him (ludicrous!). And that everyone else involved in his life is 20 years younger than him. He basically doesn't belong in the film. We needed an actor who was the same age as everyone else or the film should have been cast with a significantly older age group to fit around Colman.

Colman plays an intellectual type who is frustrated at the dumbing down of the human population. So am I. He goes onto a quiz show answering a question each week that will either double his money for him to return the following week if he answers correctly or leave him with nothing if he gives the incorrect answer. His aim is to bring down the owner of the soap company that sponsors the show - Vincent Price (Burnbridge).

There are plans and schemes and the dialogue is funny in parts - Price is the funniest character. However, the film slows down once the love interest Celeste Holm (Flame) is introduced. The film just starts to get a bit patchy where segments seem to go on for too long. However, it is ok for a comedy, which is a notoriously difficult genre to pull off.

Colman may come across as arrogant by stating that he knows everything. But he isn't. I know everything. Everyone knows everything. We just don't realize it. Well, I do. One day in the future, someone will be given credit for this thinking and it will be accepted as the truth, because it is the truth. If we can unlock our sub-conscious mind and have it run alongside our conscious mind as well as tap into the spiritual dimensions around us that are ever-present, then bingo! The human brain is a collective conscience that knows everything. We are that right now. You know everything. You just don't know it. Even dumb blonde "Frosty" as played by Ellie Marshall knows everything.

Finally, what is the point of the unfunny parrot?

Celeste Holm's death reminded me of this film, a family favorite.

I grew up in the 1960s and my mom saw this before I was born. She made me and my siblings watch it and I loved it. Ronald Colman and Vincent Price KILLED as comic actors. Heck, even Art Linkletter gets some laughs as a quiz show host. Celeste Holm is sent by the bad guys to discombobulate the genius hero as a femme fatale.

For anyone wondering, Caesar is Ronald Colman's parrot. He is voiced by Mel Blanc. You can't go wrong there.

Still a great picture and one of my favorite roles of the always engaging (and now sadly late) Celeste Holm.

I reserved this for the very day marking Vincent Price's centennial on account of its being reportedly his favorite role (playing a slick tycoon typically surrounded by yes-men but also liable to go into a trance without warning!): it is possibly the very first instance of the actor's subsequent tendency towards hamminess (though for a mild comedy with matching low-key credentials – director Whorf was a former actor – such excess actually proves doubly effective!). Plot-wise, it concerns ageing book-worm Ronald Colman looking for work and being snubbed by the soap-manufacturing company run by Price; the latter also sponsors a TV quiz show, so our intelligent hero decides to get even by going on the program and winning a fortune!

His ruse is all-too-successful so, before allowing him to cop the grand prize of $40 million, Price engages a woman (Celeste Holm, then still playing 'siren' roles) to distract Colman from his goal! On the big day, however, both he and sister Barbara Britton (who, in the interim, had struck a relationship with the show's bland comic host!) realize that their suitors probably had the money that would be coming to them in mind, so they not only break off their respective engagements but Colman even deliberately gives the wrong answer on the live show (which obviously sends Price in an ecstatic fit)! In the end, however, the two parallel romances are rekindled; Price himself comes 'down to earth' enough to visit Colman at his home where, upon encountering the amiable parrot of the title (voiced by Mel Blanc and referencing his fondness for alcohol!), he states the bird had actually belonged to him before flying away!

Well, I've just sat through this film after reading 8,9,10 star reviews for a 'hilarious' 'masterpiece', an 'overlooked gem' of a movie.

What planet are these other reviewers on? I'm genuinely puzzled as to how they can be so amused.

I kept waiting for it to start getting funny but I waited in vain: it just didn't happen and I never laughed once, not even a smile.

I could see in advance that the plot was fairly corny but I thought that with a cast list that included Ronald Colman, Celeste Holm, and Vincent Price that at least the actors involved would lift it above the run of the mill. No such luck. They all tried their best but were hampered by a script that lacked humour and direction that lacked pace.

I'm know I'm the odd man out here amongst such gushing praise but this tedious tripe is really not a funny film.

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.