Rated:
NR
Starring: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, et al.
Director: Billy Wilder
Review
"I'm not a drinker--I'm a drunk." These words, and the
serious message behind them, were still potent enough in 1945 to shock
audiences flocking to The Lost Weekend. The speaker is Don Birnam (Ray
Milland), a handsome, talented, articulate alcoholic. The writing team of
producer Charles Brackett and director Billy Wilder pull no punches in
their depiction of Birnam's massive weekend bender, a tailspin that finds
him reeling from his favorite watering hole to Bellevue Hospital. Location
shooting in New York helps the street-level atmosphere, especially a
sequence in which Birnam, a budding writer, tries to hock his typewriter
for booze money. He desperately staggers past shuttered storefronts--it's
Yom Kippur, and the pawnshops are closed. Milland, previously known as a
lightweight leading man (he'd starred in Wilder's hilarious The Major and
the Minor three years earlier), burrows convincingly under the skin of the
character, whether waxing poetic about the escape of drinking or screaming
his lungs out in the D.T.'s sequence. Wilder, having just made the
ultra-noir Double Indemnity, brought a new kind of frankness and darkness
to Hollywood's treatment of a social problem. At first the film may have
seemed too bold; Paramount Pictures nearly killed the release of the
picture after it tested poorly with preview audiences. But once in
release, The Lost Weekend became a substantial hit, and won four Oscars:
for picture, director, screenplay, and actor. --Robert Horton
-------------
The Lost Weekend brought Billy Wilder the first two of his
many Academy Awards. The film is a brilliant look at the life of a man who
is not a drinker, but a full blown drunk. Ray Milland stars as Don Birnam
who is trying to stay dry. His girlfriend, played by Jane Wyman, has
enlisted the help of Don's brother and for a while, Don deals with his
situation. But slowly and surely, his demons get the best of him and he
heads down to his local watering hole and goes on a bender. The decent of
Don into his alcoholic hell is probably the most terrifying and griping
portrayals of alcoholism ever committed to the screen. Mr. Milland is
absolutely brilliant and he avoids overplaying the role. He could have
easily hammed it up by over emoting, but he goes to just the right level
without ever going over the line. Mr. Milland took home the 1945 Best
Actor Oscar in addition to Mr. Wilder's Best Director and Writing Awards
and the film won for Best Picture. The film shows the master that Mr.
Wilder is, as he was able to coax the brilliant performance out of Mr.
Milland who was nothing more than a B-list actor up until The Lost Weekend
and never really capitalized on the role after.
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