It’s that time of year again, when the cold starts to break and warmer weather gradually begins to grace us with its presence.As the seasons change, we often seek out and welcome food and drink that reflects our surroundings.When things start to heat up, our desire for beverages that quench our thirst and cool us off grows exponentially with the increase in temperature.In a world filled with slushies and punches, there is one classic cocktail that has been helping us usher in Spring and Summer for centuries: Sangria
TOP 5 MOVIES WHERE SHERRY PLAYS A ROLE
1. – GONE WITH THE WIND. U.S.A., 1939.
Winner of 8 Oscars. View IMDB
2.-THE PHILADELPHIA STORY. U.S.A., 1940.
Winner of 2 Oscars. View IMDB
3.- BLOOD AND SAND .U.S.A., 1941.
Winner of 1 Oscar. View IMDB
4.- MRS. MINIVER. U.S.A., 1942.
Winner of 6 Oscars. View IMDB
5.-MARY POPPINS. U.S.A., 1964.
Winner of 5 Oscars. View IMDB
THE ROLE OF SHERRY IN MOVIES – PASSION FOR FILM AND SHERRY:
Gentlemen prefer blondes and blondes prefer sherry. At least that is what Marilyn Monroe is trying to make clear in Howard Hawks’ film where she pretends to have a cold to sneak away from a clingy guy. He, intelligently, recommends a sherry. There’s no escape there. This was 1953.
Yet much earlier in the second half of the 19th century, in the West, you not only drank whiskey. Some tough guys asked for a sherry and an egg at Calamity Jane’s tavern in Buffalo Bill (1936).
In the early 19th century, the charismatic Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939) asks his maid Mammy to celebrate with sherry the birth of his daughter Bonnie. She accepts and even repeats. Also, Uncle Waldo himself of The Aristocats / The Aristocats (1970), by Wolfgang Reitherman, says that he “being British” would rather be cooked with sherry than with white Rhine wine!
Furthermore, up to a selection of 600 films that I have been collecting for more than 40 years, especially from the Anglo-Saxon world, sherry is part of the ‘cast’ of actors. Almost certain, the details will turn into a book. Also, on theater and sherry “Sherry goes to the cinema”. It will be the first time that such a book is published, that is, wherein the presence of a wine, sherry wine, is monographically portrayed in cinema.
It all started in a very anecdotal way, when I saw mentions of sherry in the movies, I would take note of them, until they reached an important volume, and it became a much more methodical follow-up. It even extended to a ‘network of correspondents’, family and friends that I duped into helping because doing this alone was unthinkable.
However, the prodigious emergence of the dvd and the Internet presented the possibility for me to contrast the information, that is, compare original versions and dubbings. On my travels to London, New York, Paris…, I also bought hard-to-find films like Champagne Charlie (1944) in which there is a song from the cabaret world in London of the late 20th, titled A Glass of Sherry Wine. Or live a grand love in The End of the Affair (1955), or its remake The End of the Romance (1999), based on a play by Graham Greene where sherry wine is mentioned.
In addition to showing all this potential of the Jerez region’s wine in cinema, another of the objectives of this research is to dismantle the legend circulating throughout the city, and in certain sherry circles, “about whether mentions of sherry in films are by subsequent manipulation of dubbing”, regardless of whether or not it was referenced. An advertising ploy that has nothing to do with the original dialogues. This argument is dismantled as the original versions show that the reference to sherry exists, and the dubbing is perfectly relayed.
In most cases it is drunk as an aperitif. In George Cukor’s The Philadelphia Story (1940), journalists who will cover the wedding are invited by the bride’s mother to a midday aperitif.
In Mary Poppins (1964), it is the father feeling happy when he arrives home, after his work at the bank, and prepares his pipe, his slippers… and his sherry.
In other tapes sherry is the excuse. In Albert Lewin’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Lord Henry assures painter Basil Hallward that the sherry he has at home is the reason that leads him to visit
Therefore, from silent films from the decade of the 20s in the twentieth century to the year 2020, in a very illustrated reference book in which the image of the frame will go, the text of the dialogue in question (in English and Spanish) and a specification sheet on film includes a brief reference on the context of the film that includes a brief reference on the context of the film, That is how the story unfolds, the time period and the use of wine, whether it is aperitif, gastronomic, pairing, romantic, social…, all accompanied by its film poster. What shall distinguish the wines of the world, within our globalization, are its special characteristics, its cultural history: Painting, literature, music, cinema…, are immersed in sherry.
Lord Henry, when visiting the protagonist, Hurd Hutfield, asks him for “a glass of sherry”.
A wine that comes largely into film for literary influence, for its appearances in outstanding books. Dickens, Poe, Henry James… Or even in professions when doctors recommend drinking sherry to their patients.
Therefore, from silent films from the decade of the 20s in the twentieth century to the year 2020, in a very illustrated, reference book, in which the image of the films frame will go, the text of the dialogue in question in English and Spanish; and a specification sheet on the film that includes a brief reference on the context of the film, that is, how the story unfolds, the time period and the use of the wine, whether it is aperitif, gastronomic, pairing, romantic, social…, all accompanied by its film poster.
What shall distinguish the wines of the world, within our globalization, are its special characteristics, its cultural history: Painting, literature, music, cinema…, are immersed in sherry.
I hope that the wineries in the sector become involved in this project, as it is a very peculiar way of spreading sherry to the world. Savored for decades, a sherry film, by the big screens’ grandest stars. A sherry who might well have its star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Written by José Luis Jiménez, President of the Jerez Film Society. Member of the Real Academia de Ciencias, Artes y Letras de Jerez de la Frontera, of the Asociación Española de Periodistas y Escritores del Vino (AEPEV), and of the Associação Portuguesa de História da Vinha e do Vinho (APHVIN/GEHVID).
