The Lost Weekend (1945) 8.1
The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four day drinking bout. Director:Billy Wilder |
|
| Watch Trailer 0Share... |
The Lost Weekend (1945) 8.1
The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four day drinking bout. Director:Billy Wilder |
|
| Watch Trailer 0Share... |
| Complete credited cast: | |||
| Ray Milland | ... | ||
| Jane Wyman | ... | ||
|
|
Phillip Terry | ... | |
|
|
Howard Da Silva | ... |
Nat
|
|
|
Doris Dowling | ... | |
| Frank Faylen | ... |
'Bim' Nolan
|
|
|
|
Mary Young | ... |
Mrs. Deveridge
|
|
|
Anita Sharp-Bolster | ... |
Mrs. Foley
(as Anita Bolster)
|
|
|
Lillian Fontaine | ... |
Mrs. St. James
(as Lilian Fontaine)
|
|
|
Frank Orth | ... |
Opera Cloak Room Attendant
|
|
|
Lewis L. Russell | ... |
Mr. St. James
|
Don Birnam, long-time alcoholic, has been "on the wagon" for ten days and seems to be over the worst; but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother Wick and girlfriend Helen, he begins a four-day bender. In flashbacks we see past events, all gone wrong because of the bottle. But this bout looks like being his last...one way or the other. Written by Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
From the first shot of a bottle hanging from a drunk's apartment, we realize we are about to see a clever addict and a weekend of his demented exploits. Ray Milland has an honest face, not unlike Jimmy Stewart's, however, with this character it is only skin-deep. The great thing about his performance and the film as a whole, is that his face will gradually change, becoming dark and chilly, just like Stewart's in IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Stewart had lost his life momentarily. Milland has lost his soul to the bottle and he will stop at nothing to quench his thirst.
This really is a textbook example of the alcoholic's lies and schemes, a precursor to LEAVING LAS VEGAS, although there are people in this film who care about the drinker from the beginning. He just can't stop and we start to lose whatever sympathy we had for him because of how he treats other people. This is a drunk with a sober man wanting to come out, but Wilder's script dives deeply into the unpredictable outcomes of most alcoholics.
LOST WEEKEND was innovative and was almost never released because test audiences could not take the film's realism. The hospital sequence retains its horror, and Milland's withdrawal-induced hallucination of a rat in the wall was like him looking in the mirror. See this movie and you will come away with a completely informed and scary anthology of the antics of a hopeless alcoholic. This is amazing considering it came out of the old Hollywood system.