The Lost Weekend (1945)

The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four day drinking bout.

Director:

Billy Wilder

Writers:

Charles R. Jackson (from the novel by), Charles Brackett (screenplay),

Stars:

Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry

Won 4 Oscars. Another 11 wins & 3 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Ray Milland	...	Don Birnam
Jane Wyman	...	Helen St. James
Phillip Terry	...	Wick Birnam
Howard Da Silva	...	Nat
Doris Dowling	...	Gloria
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

Storyline

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.

---

Plot Keywords:

weekend | alcoholic | drink | writer | drinking | 

---

Taglines:

How daring can the screen dare to be? No adult man or woman can risk missing the startling frankness of The Lost Weekend!

---

Genres:

Drama

---

Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

16 November 1945 (USA)

Also Known As:

Das verlorene Wochenende

Filming Locations:

Bellevue Hospital - 550 First Avenue, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,250,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

101 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The first film featuring a "theremin" on the soundtrack - a musical instrument which produces a strange "wailing" sound that later became familiar to 1950s science-fiction film audiences. Miklós Rózsa used it in composing the score for the nightmare sequences.

---

Goofs

During one of Milland's scenes in Nat's, he grasps and shakes the bar vigorously. In a real saloon, the bar would be so heavy and/or solidly attached to the floor that no one would be able to do such a thing.

---

Quotes

Don Birnam: It shrinks my liver, doesn't it, Nat? It pickles my kidneys, yeah. But what it does to the mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar. Suddenly I'm above the ordinary. I'm competent. I'm walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. I'm one of the great ones. I'm Michaelangelo, molding the beard of Moses. I'm Van Gogh painting pure sunlight. I'm Horowitz, playing the Emperor Concerto. I'm John Barrymore before movies got him by the throat. I'm Jesse James and his two brothers, all...

---

Connections

Referenced in Variety Girl (1947)

---

Soundtracks

"La Traviata"
(1853) (uncredited)
Music by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
Libiamo ne' lieti calici (Drinking Song) Performed by John Garris and Theodora Lynch with The San Francisco Opera Company

User Reviews

more than just a simple "message" movie, Wilder tries to make addiction as human a crisis as possible

Although in some respects some of the conditions and dialog from the Lost Weekend have become dated, the performances and the ideas behind it- plus the heightened style of it- make it work many years down the line. Oscar winning director Billy Wilder makes Don Birnem's struggle something that is unmistakable, especially if you've been around these kinds of people. Most of us have seen the drunk at the end of the bar with grandiose ideas and romanticized visions amid that need (nevermind enjoyment) of the booze. But the film is successful if only because it makes this obsession with the flailing writer Don as his major internal conflict, and that it goes deeper to something that is in many of us, even if we don't drink.

Basically, Don wants to get off alcohol so he can write his great book. Despite some advice from the "friendly enemy" (as I would call one) local bartender, and the girl Gloria, there is little hope for him it seems. He goes on a four-day bender, looking frantically all over the apartment when it's not in easy reach. This all leads up to going clean, which involves a truly paranoid-filmed sequence by Wilder (one of his very best).

It is almost all harrowing drama, and only in the minute moments when Don is completely unsympathetic does the film lose some of its momentum. But really, the film is as much about the psychology of this man, of the writer in desperation (though never wanting to admit it), and Ray Milland's performance (at least for the time) was daring enough to show as much as could be shown at the time. The film probes just enough into the subject matter to not become very preachy (I don't think Wilder's message is to never drink ever as much as one of keeping control of one's life and system), and at the core is just entertaining drama.