National Cinema Day is on Saturday, August 31, and aims to entice film lovers back into cinemas nationwide. An ideal way to celebrate it is with a glass of Champagne, as throughout cinema’s greatest years, the iconic drink has shared the big screen with many of the film industry’s most talented icons and still deserves its place in the limelight.
Investigating some of Champagne’s most iconic moments on the big screen would be a monumental task for us alone. Fortunately, our friends at the Champagne Bureau UK* have done all the legwork. Below, they’ve reminded us of some of the iconic ways Champagne has featured in film throughout the years.
As Pierre Segui’s character Julien says in the 1978 film ‘The Deer Hunter’, “When a man says no to Champagne, he says no to life!”.
In 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière held the first public screening for a paying audience in the Salon Indien at the Grand Café in Paris. They used a handmade device called a Cinématographe; thus, cinema was born.
It was just one year later, in 1896, that Champagne made its cinematographic debut, when the Lumière brothers filmed ‘De La Vigne au Tonneau’ (literally ‘From the Vineyard to the Barrell’) at a Champagne house in Epernay.
Since then, Champagne has appeared on cinema screens worldwide countless times. For example, in the 1933 comedy ‘Sons of the Desert’ – a film that, in 2012, was deemed culturally significant by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry – Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy competed for a bottle of Champagne.
In the iconic 1942 film ‘Casablanca’, Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman’s characters are seen clinking Champagne when Bogart quotes his most famous saying, “Here’s looking at you, Kid”.
In the 1955 film The Seven Year Itch, Marilyn Monroe says, “Oh, I did do one thing.” When recounting her birthday celebration, she says, “I bought myself a bottle of Champagne.” She then famously explains, “It would’ve been just elegant, lying there in a bath, drinking Champagne. But I couldn’t get the bottle open.”
James Bond has been seen drinking Champagne many times in his films, in the years between 1962, when ‘Dr No’, the first film premiered in cinemas, and 2021, when ‘No Time to Die’, the latest in the franchise, was released. In fact, contrary to popular belief, James Bond is seen drinking Champagne more than he does martinis. In the 2006 film ‘Casino Royale’, he says, “If you agree, I would prefer to drink Champagne with you tonight. It is a cheerful wine, and it suits the occasion – I hope.”.
There is no denying the role that Champagne has played time and time again on the big screen, and as Cary Grant’s character Nickie Ferrante said in the 1957 film ‘An Affair to Remember’, “Do you not think life should be fresh and bubbly like Champagne?”. With this sentiment in mind, why not raise a glass of Champagne this National Cinema Day and celebrate the world of film in style?
*Champagne Bureau UK is the UK trade association representing houses and growers in Champagne.
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