The Lost Weekend
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Movie Reviews of The Lost Weekend
Movie Review: Must See For Drunks
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie rocks. Best line of the movie is when Don, commenting on the liquor stores being closed on Sunday morning, remarks sullenly "when a man needs it the most."Movie Review: The Lost Weekend
Summary: 5 Stars
I remember this movie from long ago...it still has a strong impact. I'm using it with my substance abuse clients.
Product was in great condition.
Movie Review: The Lost Weedend
Summary: 5 Stars
What a disturbing and wonderful movie all at the same time. It came in good condition and promptly. Thank You!Movie Review: Excellent Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This Movie Is well Worth Your Viewing Time. Very Good acting, Good Storyline. A+
Movie Review: Weekend Of Wine And Roses
Summary: 4 Stars
I recently screened LOST WEEKEND for a film series I'm involved with. To be frank, I wasn't all that surprised to get the mixed reactions I did receive. I seem to react differently to the film every time I see it myself. It wasn't surprising, therefore, to see a similar range of opinion among other viewers. There are aspects of the film that seem contrived and many more that seem dated, but there are also moments that are as hard hitting now as they must have been for audiences in 1945. After having seen the film a few times, I find that (as with pretty much anything else), a lot of my reaction toward it depends on my own mood. There have been times when I've snickered at the "D.T.s" scene, for instance: I mean, was the bat on loan from the DRACULA set?
Other moments can seem a little much as well but should perhaps be considered in the context of the era. I found the explanations Ray Milland's Don Birnam character gives to Nat the bartender and other assorted listeners as to just WHY he drinks a little too flowery and affected. "Wha? He feels like he's riding on a barge down the Nile? Yeah, right." If the screenwriters' aim is to suggest that would-be writer Birnam is sqandering his talent, their intentions may backfire. He just may be a better drunk than he is a writer. (And how about the scene where he actually TRIES to write and mangages, well, the title page AND the dedication before he's off on a toot. Let that be a lesson to aspiring writers everywhere: write the darn thing, THEN do the title page.)
But as I say, you should consider the times. Viewers in 1945 hadn't been as inundated with addiction lore and jargon as we are today. Many of them might well have been given food for thought by Milland's verbose explanation for why he's a lush. And you know, they--and WE--couldn't help but be charmed by this particular lush. Ray Milland is very good in this role. He was an appealing actor, but one who didn't mind exploring his dark side (think DIAL M FOR MURDER, as well as this one). He consistently transcends the hokiness. You see how he somehow manages to keep his dutiful girlfriend (Jane Wyman) and loyal brother (Phillip Terry) on a tether for the longest time. I doubt there has ever been a more accurate depiction of "co-dependency" onscreen: and this decades before "enabling" would become part of our everyday parlance.
This time out, I found myself appreciating LOST WEEKEND much, much more than I had at earlier screenings. Perhaps it was the contrarian in me: I just had to counter some of the naysayers in the audience. One criticism I had to answer, was the opinion of one fellow viewer that the much later DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES was a much superior film on the theme of alcoholism. I felt that BOTH films look somewhat dated nowadays--and in similar ways. The leads in both films go from charming lushes to delirious addicts in remarkably short order, for instance. And, interestingly, both have their "desperate hunt for the hidden bottle" scene. Much about both films might come off nowadays as being a little cliched.
Both, of course, have their strengths as well. There's real grit and humor in both, and it's plain that by the mid-20th century, audiences would not be sitting through mere morality plays on film. But I'd have to say that LOST WEEKEND had, at least, some strengths that the later film did not. It's a much less stagey drama. The exterior shots give the viewer much more of a sense of place (urban New York) than DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES even attempted to do with its San Francisco setting. No viewer will readily forget the montage of scenes with Ray Milland hitting pawn shop after closed pawn shop, trying to unload his typewriter. That's good cinema.
And Billy Wilder's film had to focus on the plight of a single individual, whereas Blake Edwards and co. got to divvy up the drama (and the viewer's sympathies) between a husband and wife team of co-dependent alkies. If Jane Wyman's character is, in contemporary terminology, an "enabler," Lee Remick was a full participant in the inebriated downward spiral, a valid artistic choice, certainly, and one that made for quite a different spin. BUT it's evident Ray Milland had to work all the harder to carry his role off. I don't begrudge him his Academy Award at all--nor do I begrudge Billy Wilder his, although this is far from his best work.