The Lost Weekend
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Movie Reviews of The Lost Weekend
Movie Review: On The Straight And Narrow
Summary: 5 Stars
Like CROSSFIRE, which was based on Richard Brooks' anti-homophobic novel THE BRICK RAINBOW, but which took every scarp of homosexuality out of it by switching its story from gay-bashing among US veterans to anti-Semitism, Billy Wilder's THE LOST WEEKEND remains one of those crypto-gay films that tries, but utlimately cannot quite manage to erase the gay subtext of the novel it was based on.
Charles Jackson's book is compelling, no more frank or harrowing than the movie, but anyone who reads it can quickly see what becomes occluded in the film--a little bit cloudy and mysterious, as though you went out for popcorn and missed a key scene. Anyone reading the book would know that alcoholism is not the only reason Don seems to want to ditch Helen and her quiet support, and instead escape to a series of seedy downtown cocktail lounges. It's because he's gay but can't admit it, not even to his understanding bro, Wick. He can't tell it to Helen either, even though she halfway knows in her heart of hearts. Instead Don just dives deeper into the bottle, seeking forgiveness and oblivion both. And while he's plowed, he manages to have a whole bunch of sex with a whole bunch of GI Bill, postwar, Cold War guys who just want to have fun.
It was an alcoholic culture and in it, a certain amount of homosexuality could flourish. In Wilder's film, the bartender played by Howard Da Silva is absolutely heterosexual, and yet he stands in for the Virgil-like figure Charles Jackson envisioned, the older man who would take Don deeper and deeper into, well, "Birnam Wood" (just like Shakespeare's Macbeth.) The male nurse played by Frank Faylen keeps some of his queer camaraderie too, as he slaps down Don into a sort of bondage--all very friendly and palsy. As the hero, Ray Milland shows that he was one of the best period actors. Often mistaken for a lightweight, he has the loathsome imagination and fear of the very greatest actors. He can imagine the horrors, and what the Hays Code wouldn't allow us to know for sure, the expressions of dumb lust and swank that play over Milland's face give us a different kind of evidence. Wilder, in fact, was the master of a queer kind of cinema; has any other straight director made so many classics with lasting gay appeal?
Movie Review: Come here...
Summary: 5 Stars
Back in the mid-40's, there were few American made films that touched upon such controversial subjects as alcoholism. Much was the mentality that `the movies' were a place to forget your problems and be `entertained'. So, when Billy Wilder attempted to create a dark and grimacing film about the disease that so many American men and women battle on a daily basis, it was nearly an uphill battle from the very start.
I'm so glad he trudged up that hill.
The film revolves around a singular weekend in the life of aspiring author Don Birnam. Birnam has been struggling the `the bottle' for years, and his recovery has been a long time coming. On the eve of a weekend getaway with his brother Wick, Don slips away for a few drinks. This tragic misstep leads to a weekend alone in the city with Don desperately fighting his inner desire to fill that void left when alcohol leaves his system. Being cut off financially, Don is forced to fend for himself, feeding the monkey on his back by selling off his belongings and stealing from strangers. Disparaging looks from others leads Don to loathe himself and what he's become.
But will this weekend truly be lost on the weak?
With a riveting (Oscar winning) performance by Ray Milland, `The Lost Weekend' becomes something truly special. This film really takes you inside the mind of a man lost in his own skin, a man trying to fight his way out of a losing situation. I've been around alcoholics my whole life. It is a disease that has run its course in my own family, and it has plagued the life of friends. Watching Don was like watching a loved one, and that is all thanks to the remarkable way that Ray Milland layered this man. Milland is aided by some key supporting players, most notably his female counterparts; Jane Wyman and Doris Dowling. Wyman is heartbreaking as Don's longsuffering girlfriend Helen, and Dowling sizzles as the young woman longing for Don's attention.
With key plot elements embellished thanks to nicely placed flashbacks, Wilder's masterpiece still holds true today. The chilling score and the beautifully shot sequences also add to the staying power of this film.
Not for the faint of heart, but well worth your time and attention.
Movie Review: Alcoholism and codependency run amuck in this powerful film!
Summary: 5 Stars
This review is for the 2000 Universal DVD release.
It's no surprise that this film won 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor. The film gives a very powerful and convincing look at alcoholism. The story revolves around three main characters: a failing novelist named Don Birnam (Ray Millard), Don's brother Wick (Phillip Terry) and Don's girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman). The story opens with Don and Wick packing to go away for the weekend so that Don can work on a novel at a secluded resort. It becomes very obvious that Don has a severe drinking problem and Wick is doing everything possible to isolate him from alcohol. Helen stops by the brothers' apartment and Don finagles Wick into taking Helen out for a few hours that afternoon before they are to leave town. Being left by himself, it's downhill for Don as he goes on a 'bender' of colossal proportions for the next several days.
Ray Millard gives the performance of a lifetime. He's a drunk for sure, but one with charm and intelligence. Jane Wyman also gives a memorable performance as the quintessential codependent girlfriend. The story is very believable and shows not only how it devastates the drinker himself, but also how it victimizes all the people in his life - especially the people who love him the most. The film also convincingly reveals some of the medical problems that accompany alcoholism and withdrawing from that condition. The cinematography was also original with some unique close-up shots, plus the music score used a theremin to induce a dark and haunting mood. This is one of those movies that once it started, I had no idea where is was going and it was a wild ride most of the way. The ending is good, and maybe just naively too good. Still, it's a movie I strongly recommend.
As for the DVD, the picture is sharp and the black & white tones are balanced. The movie did have some intermittent tiny specs of film deterioration pretty much through the entire picture. The few bonus features include the trailer and short written essays about the film and the people involved with the movie production.
Movie: A
DVD Quality: B+
Movie Review: Ahead of Its Time
Summary: 5 Stars
Thirty-three year old Don Birnam (Ray Milland), who lives with and is supported by his older brother (Phillip Terry), drinks to escape the fact that he is both unemployed and a failed writer. His girlfriend, Helen St. James (Jane Wyman), has stood by him for three years. When a supposedly recovered Don heads for a bar rather than for a peaceful four-day weekend in the country with his brother, his harrowing long/"lost" weekend begins. This is the premise of Billy Wilder's THE LOST WEEKEND (1944), a movie ahead of its time in several respects. First, there is the theme of alcoholism, referred to here as an illness, a disease, by Don's sympathetic girlfriend. Then there is Helen herself: this is no girl pining away for a worthless man but a strong young woman of character who believes in Don when no one else does. Miklos Rosza's unsettling, Theremin-dominated musical score sounds more like a score for an episode of the 1950's-1960's anthology series THE TWILIGHT ZONE than like typical `40's movie music. And finally, there is Milland's portrayal of Don, which is startlingly naturalistic, particularly so in the truly frightening "bat and mouse" hallucination scene and in the touching scene where he overhears Helen's "respectable" parents talking about him and suddenly decides he needs a drink. Told partially in flashback to disorienting effect, THE LOST WEEKEND prefigures a 1962 movie about alcoholism, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, both in its general themes and in a specific scene, where Don drunkenly ransacks his brother's house for a bottle he hid there when he was sober. (This incident brings to mind Jack Lemmon's painful "greenhouse scene" in the later film.) Progressive in more ways than one, Wilder's movie is essential viewing along with DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES and Otto Preminger's 1955 THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM, starring Frank Sinatra as an aspiring drummer struggling with an addiction to heroin.
Movie Review: Authentic portrayal of addiction
Summary: 5 Stars
In every mannerism, every lie, every scam, every broken promise, every action, all the desperate need, author Don Birnem (played by Ray Milland) is alcoholism personified. The movie is from 1940s, and the appearance of an alcoholic (or any addict) is identical today, a full 70 years later. My chief complaint is with the ending, which is a cop-out to the time of this movie, and the only part of the plot which isn't true to the nature of alcoholism (a good speech and a decision to go cold turkey is NOT going to change a man who drinks so much he hallucinates). Despite the flimsiness of the ending, I highly recommend this movie.
Don Birnem is a "writer" in the loosest sense of the term and an alcoholic in the most sincere sense of the term. He lives off his brother Wick and his loving girlfriend Helen. Wick has spent years covering for his brother, and Helen is determined to cure her boyfriend of a disease she considers equivalent to heart or lung trouble. Don exemplifies the most desperate manipulations of an alcoholic--stealing from his own maid, getting so distracted by champagne onstage in the opera that he has to sneak out for his bottle, sneaking away from those who love him so he can get his fix, needs "just one" to settle his nerves (and it never ends there), and continually manipulating the neighborhood bartender. He delivers a brilliant monologue to the bartender about the painful waking of an alcoholic, wondering if it is daytime and a bottle can be bought, or if it is the dreadful Sunday, and no alcohol can be obtained.
The cinematography is outstanding, especially the scenes in Don's apartment, which he destroys looking for hidden alcohol. Some shots are taken from the overturned lamp, reinforcing the discord of Don's life well. Others focus on places were the audience remembers Don hid a bottle, but he can't remember.