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Review

The Lost Weekend

Director

Billy Wilder

Year

1945

Rating

Reviewed by

a.k.a. Vincent

Review date

Tuesday, April 03, 2001

One of the first really serious films to be made by a Hollywood studio. Even over 55 years after it was made The Lost Weekend still holds up incredibly well. It’s one of Billy Wilder’s best, and it is still likely to make a man think twice about taking another drink.

Up until this movie was made alcoholism was a topic that rarely made it into mainstream movies, and when it did it was always made to look as something comical. W.C. Fields became famous because of his drunken routine, as did Robert Benchley, but in reality alcoholism is a serious problem of course, and very unfunny.

Based on Charles Jackson‘s book, the film tells the story of Don Birnham (Ray Milland), a New York writer who several years ago developed an alcohol problem and now lives with his brother. He has convinced his brother that the worst is behind him, even though this is clearly not the case, and when his brother leaves for a weekend Don is alone for the first time and falls right back in his old habits.

During this weekend we follow his desperate attempts to get a drink. We see him selling his personal stuff, borrowing money from friends, begging and stealing, all so he can just get one more drink, but as a character in the film rightly says “One’s too many and a hundred is not enough” so eventually he winds up in a hospital. After some terrifying experiences here he tells himself that he will make a new attempt to kick the habit.

The ending of the film doesn’t show us that Don is clean, in fact it has more than a hint that he will start drinking again, and in my mind that is the right way to end this movie. Most alcoholics never recover and when a film takes so much trouble in showing the harrowing real facts behind this addiction it would be naive to end with a character who can stop drinking seemingly without any real problems.

In the leading role Ray Milland is always believable. He never was a great actor, but his part is so well written that he hardly needs to do anything. He gets some solid support from Jane Wyman, as his girlfriend, Howard Da Silva as Ned, his favorite bartender, Frank Faylen (memorable as Bim, Don’s male nurse during his stay in the hospital) and Doris Dowling as one of the most obvious prostitutes to appear on the screen during the period of the Production Code.

The film is filled with memorable scenes, such as when Milland is at an opera and he begins to hallucinate when they start singing a drinking song. Another memorable moment comes when he wants to sell his typewriter to a pawnbroker, but can’t find a single one that is opened (This scene was shot on location in New York, which was most unusual at the time). The scenes near the end are frightening, most notably a scene in which Milland believes he sees a bat flying across his room which begins to eat a mouse.

As is usually the case with Wilder, the film is great to listen to. There are some great lines and speeches here.

One of the most unusual touches was made by composer Miklos Rozsa. His disturbing score would seem more at home in one of those cheap 50’s sci-fi movies, but it adds just the right touch to the most disturbing scenes. Without this music I think the film would be a lot less effective.

In 1945 the film was rightly awarded with several Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Actor and Screenplay. But the film came close to never being released at all; in fact the film sat on a shelf at Paramount for almost a year, because the studio was considering an offer from some giant liquor companies to buy the negative for the then amazing amount of $5 million. After much talking, Wilder finally got the studio’s permission to preview the film in New York, where it was received with great praise. This persuaded the studio to give the film a release and it became a great success.

The subject of alcoholism has been dealt with in many films since, like Barfly and Leaving Las Vegas and while these were great as well and even more graphic is showing the effects of the problem they still can’t quite stand the comparison with this one. The Lost Weekend manages to be both entertaining and thought provoking, which is something very few films can do.

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