179. The Lost Weekend (1945)

Running Time: 101 minutes
Directed By: Billy Wilder
Written By: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, from novel by Charles R. Jackson
Main Cast: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling
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WILDER WEEK: CHAPTER II

"That's the nice young man who drinks."

Rolling on with my return, we come to the second installment of the "Wilder Week" festivities and "The Lost Weekend", starring Ray Milland as Don Birnam - a role that won Milland an Academy Award and rightfully so.

The film begins by zooming in on a Manhattan apartment, as the Birnam brothers, Don (Milland) and Wick (Terry), are busy packing for a weekend getaway. It seems as though Don has had a rough go of it lately and Wick means to take him away for a nice, long four day weekend. Don is an alcoholic, which we get clues to from the get go, via a whiskey bottle dangling from the end of a rope, hanging out the window of their apartment - one of Don's many clever hiding spots. Right away we also meet Helen St. James (Wyman), Don's loyal girlfriend - a girl for whom he actually gave up the bottle for once. Before the Birnam's can catch their 3:15 train, Don urges Wick and Helen out of the apartment, so that he can finish packing and take a nap. When the ruse works, of course Don takes the time to quench his never ending thirst. Don finds $10 in the apartment and uses the dough to buy two bottles of cheap Rye and then heads over to Nat's Bar to buy as many shots as he can, urging the bartender to tell him when it's 5:45 (the time that Wick and Helen are due back at the apartment) and spends the next few hours collecting wet circles on the bar, shot after shot. When Don is too far gone to make it back to the apartment prior to Wick and Helen's arrival, he is abandoned by a fed up Wick and dodges a worried Helen. Therefore, Don is left alone for the weekend, free to drown in the throes of his addiction. What will happen when the bottle runs dry, the money is gone and those little pink elephants start to do their wicked dance?'

There's actually not much wrong with "The Lost Weekend". While it's not particularly a personal favorite of mine, as I tend to find it a tad on the boring side (just a tad), it's not hard for me to admit how almost flawless the picture really is. The film is perfectly segmented into individually great pieces and each and every scene is essential to the film as a whole, with no wasted motions. The film makes it snappy when laying the original groundwork, introducing the characters and establishing the addiction of Don Birnam. We quickly establish that Don will do nearly anything to taste the sweet Rye on his lips, as we see by the bottle hanging out the window. Then we get into the "lost weekend" that the title suggests, as Don is left alone, forced to battle his addiction with a sum of $10 and whatever money he can scrape up hocking his possessions. We spend a time in Nat's Bar, as Don goes over his history and how he once kicked the habit for a new addiction - Helen. We get a great scene at a nightclub, where Don is forced to steal a woman's purse in order to pay his bar tab and I'll stop there because there's really no need to spoil anything. My point is that the film provides great scene after great scene and really my complaint of a boring picture is, even by my own admission, unjustified.

THE BOOK makes note of it and I'd have to concur, that no film has ever tackled the subject of addiction quite as effectively as "The Lost Weekend". When I first started this journey, my perception of older films were that they were a little bit like that overly happy next door neighbor who always had a smile and a wave for you. It was my perception that older movies were more artificial than newer offerings and failed to be really real and provide real emotions. I've been smartened up as I've made my way down this cinematic path and no film could prove my former opinion more wrong than "The Lost Weekend", where shit gets really real, really fast. In my life, I've rarely drank and the farthest my drug use has gone is nicotine and caffeine. However, "The Lost Weekend" will actually let you feel what it's like to have an addiction, to realize what it's like to need something so badly that you go a little insane when you don't get it. At times, the picture is uncomfortable and the scene with the bat and mouse is downright scary, as you realize Don has sunk further than he's ever been. Of course Ray Milland deserved the Oscar this year, he poured out all of his talent and all of his heart to bring us the Don Birnam character.

However, like I said, the film is a scoche on the slow side and honestly, the only actor or actress worth mentioning from the entire production IS Ray Milland. Jane Wyman annoyed me more than she charmed me and made me almost realize why the Don Birnam character drank - with a dame like that I'd get sloshed too. I liked Phillip Terry, but he just wasn't in it enough and the same goes for Frank Faylen ("Bim"), with a great few minutes of screen time. Also, speaking of Helen, I feel like her relationship with Don wasn't established enough. I had a really hard time buying that this girl's affections would be powerful enough to get Don to crawl out of the bottle...temporarily.

RATING: 7/10  That's playing it safe with the rating. Although, really, I can understand anyone who'd go so far as to give it a '10', as it does have those flawless qualities. Next up in "Wilder Week": "Sunset Blvd."...but expect some filler between now and then, because I won't have "Sunset Blvd." until Friday.

MOVIES WATCHED: 603
MOVIES LEFT TO WATCH: 398

January 30, 2013  2:10am