Champagne (1928)

Hitchcock's second release of 1928 is an uncharacteristically slight comedy about a millionaire's decision to put an end to his frivolous daughter's engagement with an unsuitable suitor by feigning bankruptcy. Not a favourite with its director, who thought it "probably the lowest ebb in my output", Champagne nevertheless contains many flashes of Hitchcock brilliance, with witty shots through a champagne glass and a disturbing sequence in which the feckless heroine (the frothy Betty Balfour) imagines herself sexually assaulted by the man who (as it ultimately emerges) has been employed by her father to spy on her. The deftly observed voyeurism by this and other characters is another emblematic Hitchcock touch.