The Lost Weekend
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Movie Reviews of The Lost Weekend
Movie Review: Compelling Film About Alcoholism
Summary: 5 Stars
I rarely watch older films. By "older" films, I mean movies made before 1960. It's not due to some prejudice on my part about black and white cinematography: my inability to view many early films arises from the fact that far too many of these movies are so melodramatic. You know what I mean: lots of swooning, hands swept across foreheads, and exaggerated body movements all set to crashing waves of syrupy orchestral music. Those swelling violins alone are enough to set my teeth on edge anytime I watch an old film, but occasionally a picture overcomes all of these pet peeves of mine and truly delivers on multiple levels. "The Lost Weekend" is one of those films. Sure, the emoting is there, as is the music and the swooning, but this compelling story about an alcoholic at the end of his rope always pulls at my heartstrings. I am going to start seeking out some classic older films that will tickle my fancy, but I don't expect to find too many of them with the power of "The Lost Weekend."Ray Milland (an actor who starred in several schlockfests at the end of his career, such as "Frogs") plays Don Birnam, a painfully insecure writer who just can't make his life work. Birnam quickly learned that the soothing balm of alcohol took the edge off his various phobias, but he just as quickly learned that drinking took the edge off his talent, too. For years, Birnam never wandered far from the neighborhood bar or the liquor store, secure in the knowledge that a bottle of rye was always within reach. His brother Wick not only financially supports his boozy sibling; he also covers for him when the drinking causes problems. Of course, Don doesn't care much about his brother one way or the other as long as he gets his shot of whisky when he needs it. Another problem for Don appears in the form of Helen St. James (played by an enormously cute Jane Wyman), a successful writer at Time magazine who accidentally met Don at the opera one night and has since latched on to him despite his chronic alcoholism. When Birnam isn't trying to outwit Wick or Helen, he's down at the local bar spouting alcoholic witticisms to Nat the bartender (played wonderfully by Howard Da Silva) and flirting with a beautiful barfly named Gloria. We learn most of the story through a flashback sequence told by Birnam as he ties on yet another massive drunk.
The film starts with a nervous Don packing for a weekend trip with brother Wick, where the two siblings hope to get out of New York City for a nice change of pace. Of course, Don doesn't want to go because he's not sure he can survive without ready access to booze. In fact, during this opening sequence we see Don hiding a bottle of whisky from his brother by hanging it from a piece of string outside his window. In order to start drinking, Birnam convinces Wick and Helen to go to a concert, a little piece of trickery that is only the beginning of the devious schemes hatched by Don throughout the film. Thus begins a downward spiral over the course of a four-day weekend, as Don resorts to outright theft, robbery, and beggary in order to secure just one more drink. This bender comes with a high price, though: Don suffers excruciating blackouts, nearly gets himself arrested, and ends up in the alky ward at the city asylum. The capper is Birnam's bout with the DTs in his apartment, an incident that reduces him to a shattered, screaming wreck. "The Lost Weekend" is a memorable experience.
Only a person who has never had a problem with alcohol would criticize some of Birnam's philosophical musings about drinking. There is a great bit of dialogue where Birnam tells Nat why he drinks, about how alcohol makes a person feel as though he or she is a great artist on top of the world. Believe me, this is how an alcoholic feels when they tie one on, at least in the early euphoric stages of the addiction. Birnam's enthrallment for rituals of drinking is also dead on; such as his fascination about the rings the shot glass leaves on the bar and the propensity to "see" liquor in the most mundane circumstances (look for the dancing raincoats with the rye bottle in the pocket). An alcoholic does not merely work at his trade part-time; the process of drinking is a full-time job built on a series of elaborate rituals that reinforce this nefarious addiction. "The Lost Weekend" captures the intricacies of alcoholism in a way few films ever have. Unfortunately, the movie lost some of its power due to some hokey effects and a conclusion that had me throwing my hands up in disbelief.
The DVD release is quite good for a film nearly sixty years old. There is a trailer and cast biographies included here, as well as a short bio for director Billy Wilder. The transfer looks pretty good, although I thought I saw a few scenes where certain parts of the picture looked a tad blurry. "The Lost Weekend" won four Oscars: Best Actor for Ray Milland, Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Director for Billy Wilder. As far as I can see, this movie deserves its accolades. If you haven't seen "The Lost Weekend," you are definitely missing out on a great film loaded with grim atmosphere, great dialogue, eerie background music, and excellent performances.
Movie Review: Hollywood's greatest alcoholism drama
Summary: 5 Stars
Topping even I'LL CRY TOMORROW (1955) and DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1962), Billy Wilder's Oscar-winning THE LOST WEEKEND (1945) is the greatest alcoholism drama in Hollywood's history. In the performance of a lifetime, Ray Milland plays Don Birnham, a New York writer who goes on a weekend binge when his unpleasant brother (Phillip Terry) and girl friend Helen (Jane Wyman) go on vacation. His goal is to finish a novel while alone in Manhattan, but the bottle gets the best of him.
This is a harrowing drama for adults and a powerful cautionary drama about the horrors of alcohol. To think that it passed the Hays Office censor board and came out of mainstream Hollywood makes one momentarily proud. Wilder seemed to have a genius, along with writer Charles Brackett, for getting controversial material approved by the censors-DOUBLE INDEMNITY, SUNSET BLVD., ACE IN THE HOLE, and this. Repeatedly, he made masterpiece after masterpiece that still does Hollywood proud and helped the film industry grow up bit by bit. My Mom keeps reminding me that he also did them with no profanity at all when I swear too much.
WEEKEND opens with a dolly in shot of a bottle of alcohol dangling by a string out a Manhattan apartment window-Birnham's hidden bottle. But his brother finds it and pours it down the drain. How to get more booze after brother and Helen leave? Birnham sweet-talks the semi-friendly local bartender Bim (Howard da Silva, who should have also been Oscar-nominated). Sitting for hours in the bar, Don tells Bim in flashback how he met Helen at an opera performance.
Later, in the present day, he tries to hock his typewriter instead of writing with it, but today is Sunday. He finds another bottle of booze, I don't know what kind as a non-drinker, hiding in a light fixture. Instead of writing, he drinks and drinks and drinks...and has horrifying d.t.'s in a scene that is still chilling and overwhelming. He ends up in the alcoholic ward of Bellevue Hospital. Legend has it that Wilder filmed this sequence on location inside Bellevue by showing the administrators a bogus "G"-rated children's screenplay. Two years later, George Seaton sought to film his MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947) inside Bellevue, with Santa Claus getting psychiatric treatment--and was refused. Poor Bellevue did not want to get suckered again!
THE LOST WEEKEND is a masterpiece. I believe the Charles Jackson source novel is even bleaker. His Don Birnham is gay and has no girl friend (or boy friend) to help him get sober. I think he is still an alcoholic at the book's end. I might be wrong because I have not read it. Screenwriters Wilder and Brackett want something tentatively positive, if not completely happy, for their great movie. I won't tell you what it is. But I will say the ending is unforgettable and exhilarating--the camera that tracked in at the beginning to a bottle of booze hanging out a window now pulls back from the same window with no bottle. Powerful voice-over as we pan along an apartment wall to a matte painting of the Manhattan skyline and Miklos Rozsa's powerful music swelling up: "And out there in that great big concrete jungle, I wonder how many others there are like me, poor bedeviled guys on fire with thirst. Such comical figures to the rest of the world as they stagger blindly toward another binge, another bender, another spree." So ends one of the greatest dramas in movie history and the definitive alcoholism drama. THE LOST WEEKEND does Hollywood proud. (Reviewed from an old VHS tape copy.)
Movie Review: Powerful drama whose ending does not do it justice
Summary: 5 Stars
I can understand why the studio did not want to release "The Lost Weekend" in 1945: it's a gritty and realistic (sometimes horrifyingly so) account of an alcoholic's weekend binge. Going against years of movies that portrayed drunkeness as something cute and harmless, this movie pulls no punches in illustrating to what depths a man will stoop when he just has to have a drink.There's a story told about the filming of "LW," in which another of Ray Milland's on-the-street takes were ruined when someone recognized him. Instead of asking for his autograph, though, the woman offered to bring him back to her apartment for a drink. She didn't believe him when he said he was making a movie about a drunk; she thought the actor was down on his luck and really *was* a drunk. Billy Wilder came out from behind the hidden camera and finally set her straight. This is a good illustration of the power of Milland's performance; his work is quite extraordinary. Jane Wyman as his girlfriend Helen does a good job with a small role, as does Phillip Terry as Don's brother Wick.
While the drama of the movie moves along at a fevered pitch, it really starts to build to a level of unbearable tension when Helen goes to retrieve her coat (which Don has stolen) from the pawnbroker, only to discover Don didn't trade it for money for booze, but rather a gun he had pawned earlier. After his earlier talk of putting a bullet through his head, the audience and Helen realize at the same time what his intentions are, and we find ourselves as anxious as Helen as she races back to his apartment. She gets there in time, and the two play a game of cat and mouse, warily stepping around each other as he tries to get her to leave, and she tries to get to the gun first.
After winding things up so tightly, though, the movie ends with an anti-climax: Helen gives Don her same old inspirational speech about his having the talent to make a go of it as a writer, and suddenly, this time he believes her, vowing once again (and we're to assume that this time it took) to give up drinking and make something of himself. He gives us a pat little explanation of his alcoholism, and ends by saying gee, he feels sorry for all those other drunks out in NYC that think they're fooling everyone. Fade to black.
I realize this is a typical Hollywood ending of the time (1945), with everything working out okay in the end, but I felt cheated. I had been so captivated by this true to life story, with nothing glossed over, that the ending didn't ring true at all. Strange as it may sound, I think I would have almost preferred Don to put a bullet in his head. It would have felt much more realistic than him basically saying, "You're right Helen, I will stop drinking and write that book," and with a snap of the fingers, put his drunken ways behind him.
This is my only complaint about the movie, and it is an extremely small one; don't let my thoughts about the ending stop you from watching this film. It is an astonishing movie even in this day and age, even more so when you consider it was made almost 60 years ago.
Movie Review: One's Too Many and a Hundred's Not Enough
Summary: 5 Stars
As with all the great products on Amazon, the spotlight reviews have just about covered everything that should impel one to watch this fine film. I should only like to resonate and emphasize those points.
At its core, The Lost Weekend is a didactic movie that tries to show all the degenerative aspects of alcoholism, with a self-conscious sense of unflinching character. Of course, by now there are plenty of films--both fictional and documentaries--that take on the same goal. The beauty of this one, and the reason for watching it, is in the approach the director takes to relate the message.
To make sure we sympathize with Don Birnam, rather than see him as a doomed sod of a separate class from us, the director employs the film noir style. Don is not a bum or a wife-beater, but an intelligent, witty fellow, with his own quirks (like constantly putting a cigarette the wrong way in) who is driven to drink by the weight of his ambitions--a typical film noir presentation of an essentially decent man corrupted by a wrong decision. As his vice starts to dominate and he tumbles into the abyss, his surroundings reflect the change by moving from the bright cheeriness of an opera or the prospect of a relaxing weekend in the countryside to the dark and seedy halfway ward of the hospital. Here, too, the film noir technique of stark lighting contrasts and dominating shadows play an effective role. Ultimately, as Don reaches rock bottom, he intends to find redemption one way or another, although the ending picks, somewhat superficially, the cheerier of the alternatives.
The reason for watching this movie, then, is not the plot necessarily--even by watching the trailer, you should find out it will focus entirely on a man's spiritual dissolution--but for the empathy it aptly evokes. Don is fully fleshed out, is portrayed as a convincing representation of even the most good-natured person in the audience, and the result is that the viewer feels the heartfelt pangs of withdrawal almost as much as Don himself.
Whoever wants to see superb manipulation of lighting and character development, in other words, need look no further than this noir classic. Everything that needs to support these things is present--a great director, fantastic acting, memorable writing (a quote of which is the title for this review), all these are present. The only thing it lacks is consistency with the ending, but even that is handled so eloquently that you won't walk away with disappointment.
As a side note, since this is a review for the whole product, the DVD has nice video quality, though some of the very dark scenes do show signs of "static." The features include only the trailer, and images of production notes and actor/production team biographies. Though lacking in all, at least the production notes are very pithy.
Movie Review: Almost 60 years later, still a strong and powerful film
Summary: 5 Stars
A searing, powerful and no-holds barred depiction of the horrors of alcoholism, condensed into the events covering a long. four-day weekend. Almost sixty years after this film was made, it's message is clear and moving... When the film begins the main character is well into the alcoholic illness, and there is no hiding his predicament, nor his attempts to hide his illness from those around him. The film then explodes into all the various aspects of alcoholism, showing L.W's clearly defined dependeance on liquor... his self hatred and disgust of his weakness... showing the total degeneration and final degredation of a once, ambitious and talented individual to a "bum" om the streets and reduced to stealing in order to gain a drink. The ward scenes in a city hospital are particularly harrowing as is also the creation of the final descent into near madness with his own peculair brand of the D.T's.
A film made in a gritting realistic manner, and directed by Billy Wilder in a no-nonsense, " straight at you ", style. The acting is superb, with Ray Milland making a major change in previous role types, to tackle the seriousness, drabness and despair of this person. And to me, that is the main strength of this film. It is written, acted and directed sympathetically, avoiding all inclinations to sensationalism, or exploitation. Ray Milland won a Best Actor Oscar for his role, and arguably never equalled that standard in later films. Not only concentrating on the central themse and its character, the film also shows the "ripples" ... the effect that the main character's actions and attitudes have on others. His girlfriend, sesnitively played by Jane Wyman is almost driven to abandoning him... a bartender constanty jeers, berates and mocks him.. a male nurse offers no noticeable help or advice; just quotes statistics and almost offers no hope for L.W. And in one jarring restaurant scene where L.W. has succumbed to stealing a woman's purse in order to gain money to pay for his meal; is caught out, thrown out of the restaurant as the patrons all stand and sing: "Somebody Stole My Purse".. to the tune of " Somebody Stole My Gal".
This DVD, I found, offers a good transfer, with sharp contrasts and a clear picture. The film now looks like new, although there is no ,mention of restoration anywhere. Good film to have in any collection, especially for the Oscar winning performance of Ray Milland. If you enjoy great film-making combined with a serious well-intentioned story, this is a film for you.