Customer Reviews

Days of Wine and Roses

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I was never really interested in drinking alcohol and after catching "Days of Wine and Roses" on late night television I knew I was never going to drink, never get drunk, and never end up like the character of Joe Clay, played by the late Jack Lemmon. Joe is in public relations and cannot have a good time unless he is drinking. He meets up with Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick), and informed she does not drink but loves chocolate, he orders her a Brandy Alexander. Joe and Kirsten marry, although her father Ellis Arnesen (Charles Bickford), is not sure he approves. Joe's alcoholism finally costs him his job and by then Kirsten is boozing just as much. In one of the most ghastly scenes in movie history, Joe destroys the Arnesen greenhouse, looking for the bottles of booze he has buried with one of the plants. With the help of A.A. Counselor Jim Hungerford (Jack Klugman), Joe finally starts to get his life together. But Kirsten cannot do the same, even for the sake of their daughter Debbie.

With Lemmon's death a lot of his old movies are suddenly popping up on cable television. I watched "Days of Wine and Roses" again last night and it is every bit as powerful and as horrific as I remember. No other film has made the life of an alcoholic look so hopeless, not "Leaving Last Vegas" and certainly not "Lost Weekend." Lemmon and Remick were both nominated for Oscars for their performances, while Henry Mancini's title song won the Academy Award. Charles Bickford repeated the role he originated in the "Playhouse 90" version aired in 1958, which was directed by James Frankenheimer. Blake Edwards directed this 1962 movie because the studio told Frankenheimer he could not direct a comedy like this film. Both scripts were written by J. P. Miller. Bottom line: Nobody who ever watches this movie will ever forget it.

Joe Clay (Jack Lemmon) is an up-and-coming Public Relations agent in the era of the three-martini lunch and "drinks with the boys" following the workday. While providing a client with, literally, a boatload of girls, Joe meets receptionist Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick), a good girl from a stable country upbringing.

Joe introduces Kirsten to alcohol in the form of a Brandy Alexander, and before long the two fall in love and marry. Joe provides a good living for his wife and new baby daughter, but becomes depressed from the quiet family life and a baby that takes up all of his wife's attention. In a truly gut-wrenching scene, Joe berates and completely degrades Kirsten for not being any fun anymore, throwing a temper tantrum while drunk and demanding that she stop nursing her own baby (mammary envy) because its going to ruin her shape. A very poignant and heart braking scene.

Kirsten is deeply in love with Joe, and concedes to his demands to "loosen up a little and be fun again", which means having a couple of drinks with him. It isn't long before Kirsten is drinking all the time, and very common of women in the early sixties, Kirsten starts smoking (probably to help lose weight, though this isn't mentioned beyond Joe's comment about her shape).

Joe's career slides as his drinking increases, causing him to be late for work and upsetting his clients. His company assigns him to a lower-level client in far away Houston. While Joe tries to do his job there, Kirsten sets their apartment on fire from drinking and smoking. Joe is fired, and not long afterward Joe has an epiphany. He is a bum, and his wife is a bum, and they need to stop drinking.

Kirsten's father takes the struggling couple into his home where he runs a nursery. After a couple of months sober, Joe and Kirsten fall off the wagon together in a riotous binge in their room. A second very poignant incident follows where Joe trashes his father-in-law's nursery looking for the bottle he hid. This scene may seem overdone at first, but just tune into one episode of 'Cops' and you will see how well Jack Lemmon played this scene.

This time, Joe winds out in the hospital going through some overblown withdrawal symptoms, and it is here he meets Jim Hungerford (Jack Klugman) from Alcoholics Anonymous. Once in AA, Joe tries to fight his disease, while Kirsten remains in absolute denial of being an alcoholic. You must remember that this movie was made in 1962, and there was quite a stigma attached to being an alcoholic, the 60's version of a scarlet letter.

There is no happily-ever-after in this movie. Though made in 1962, it is still the best of the 'alcoholic' movies ever made. 'Leaving Las Vegas' certainly portrayed a down-and-out alcoholic, but the character Ben from that modern portrayal wanted to die. 'Days Of Wine And Roses' is the story of two people's struggle against alcoholism, not their submission to it.

There is nothing outdated about this movie except the fashion; times change, behaviors don't. Kirsten's confession that she "just wants things to look prettier than they are" rings so true to addiction in any form or from any era. This movie is about people and the disease, not the time-period, so it stands up to any of the modern day addiction stories.

'Days Of Wine And Roses' is a true classic, a timeless piece that is both sad and entertaining. Take a quick note of the fact that in Joe and Kirsten's first apartment, the bar was right outside the baby's room. I thought that was a bit ironic.

If you love addiction movies, modern pieces like 'Leaving Las Vegas', 'Requiem For A Dream', 'Spun', or 'Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas', you will love 'Days Of Wine And Roses'. Enjoy!

The late Jack Lemmon is likely to be remembered by most moviegoers for his memorable comic presence in classics like "Some Like It Hot" and the "Odd Couple", but anyone who ever doubted his capacity for dramatic acting should screen "Days Of Wine And Roses". This shattering 1962 Blake Edwards drama was shockingly realistic for its time (apparently prompting opening-week "walkouts" by many Lemmon fans expecting another "funny" role). The film still packs quite a wallop in its depiction of an alcoholic couple and thier hellish descent. Lee Remick, forever underrated, (undoubtedly due to her luminous beauty) delivers another of her brainy, mature performances. Everyone mentions the "greenhouse scene", but I feel the most intense moment comes in the "padded room" scene, with a sweating, screaming, strait-jacketed Lemmon writhing in "withdrawal". Call it "sense memory", "method" or whatever, but to this day it remains one of the the most "naked" scenes of an actor totally "in the moment" ever captured on film. A great American film, and a classic Henry Mancini score to boot.

"Days of Wine and Roses" might be one of the least pleasant movies you will ever watch. But one of the main reasons to watch this wonderful film is the great interaction between Boston natives Jack Lemmon and the late Lee Remick. Lemmon plays busy-body Joe Clay, a very agreeable man who ends acquiring a decidedly UNagreeable habit while pressing flesh with business peers--alcoholism. Joe finds time to court pretty Kirsten (Remick), and she finds herself trying to keep up with Joe and his crazy nightlife. In the span of a couple of months, Kirsten is herself caught in a maze of booze and sleepless nights.

Soon, the happy couple are both victimized by their addiction to drink, but are slow to realize it. Slowly, painfully, each scene of their lives is shown to revolve around the bottle; even their time alone is marred by a bottle of champagne.

Joe is the first to hit rock bottom. He finds assistance and solace by a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (Jack Klugman). Joe sets his sites on getting his wife free of the disease, but finds it will not be easy.

The scenes of Joe going through his final binge are scary indeed. The second half of the film is quite different from the first in mood. It is not pretty to watch such self-destruction, and director Blake Edwards (known for producing much lighter, screwier fare in the late 70's and early 80's) makes his audience feel the pain deeply; he succeeds to the point that we, the audience, can sense some urgency in Edwards' emphasis.

There is a tendency for too much preachiness in a story of this magnitude. However, Edwards does a good job in maintaining the plot line, letting IT tell the story. Klugman is a great supporting actor in this film. It's his performance in the second half that gives this film a better than average rating, as the voice of conscience to Joe Clay, setting the stage for the final, inevitable reality.

This early depiction of alcoholism was also among the first to present its sufferers as real people with souls and some dignity, and it remains a timeless and relevant film. Ingeniously, this film not only is about alcoholism, it is also about recovery, and that both are told earns the film classic status. The film's leads, Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick (sadly, neither of whom is with us anymore), got Best Acting Oscar nominations, Lemmon for his frightening depiction of one man's descent to hell but who, leaning heavily on AA philosophy, earns his recovery. As Lemmon's screen wife, Remick is her husband's antithesis, and her final scene leaves us with no hope for her character. Though firmly on the path toward sobriety, Lemmon's character nonetheless injects the warning that even the rosebed of recovery has its thorns. Just as the film's subject remains pertinent, so does Henry Mancini's haunting musicial score. A spate of drug and recovery films have come out through the years since "Days of Wine and Roses," but none have equalled the film's painful honesty and realistic depiction of addiction and recovery.

The Hollywood depiction of the corrosive effects of alcoholism has rarely been so stark as that in DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES. More recent efforts like LEAVING LAS VEGAS suggest that alcoholism is but one offramp on the highway of self-destruction. Director Blake Edwards presents a tale that begins in middle-class happiness, then winds down to the sodden depths of the perversion of Corporate Suburban America, before finishing with the brutal truth that the ability of an alcoholic to free himself from this disease is a function of his inner strength that can only be nurtured, not forced, by Alcoholics Anonymous.

Jack Lemmon is Joe Clay, a man on the rise in his corporate culture. He is a public relations executive, a job that today we would call a spin control mechanic. He makes the good image of a company better while trying to downplay the downside. This image of altered reality forms a subtext which becomes evident when Joe and his fiancee (Lee Remeck) are having dinner with her father (Charles Bickford), who is trying to understand exactly what his daughter's boyfriend does for a living. Joe hems and haws but admits to enhancing the positive aspects of his corporate clients. But the father persists and asks what about any harmful sides to that image. Joe weakly adds that he would then gloss over the downside while always bringing the positive to bear. It is this altering of reality that allows Joe, then later his wife, to get caught up in the freewheeling culture of a drug abuse that has now morphed in one of cocaine. The lure of Wine and Roses is neither absolute nor irresistable. The film makes it clear early on that much time and dissolution is needed to become entangled. One does not take a sip one day to become ensnared the next. Joe Clay makes the crossover from social drinker to hard drinker so gradually that neither he nor his wife are aware until the evidence is so blatant that both recognize the dangers, but still feel the need to explain away these dangers as inconsequential. First Joe falls in, then soon enough his wife. The scenes of Joe's going hysterically mad in his father-in-law's greenhouse and in the county asylum are harrowing in their intensity. Joe has cracked, and it takes the arrival of an AA counselor (Jack Klugman) to place Joe on the right path. But the path to sobriety has many false turns, and Joe has yet to hit rock bottom. The contrapuntal scenes of Lee Remick's own descent in the corked maelstrom are more subdued but not the less miserable. Joe has hit rock bottom and the harsh truth is that he cannot help his wife until he first learns to help himself. By the closing credits, she has yet to learn this most bitter of lessons.

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is one of the landmarks of Hollywood in that it takes a no punches withheld look at a subject that many Americans have heard about but perhaps have not seen the consequences that result when the social drinker uncorks that bottle even when alone. Lemmon and Remick are simply outstanding as a couple in which one of them learns this lesson even if the other does not.

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is basically a story of two genuinely good people who fall in love and into the abyss of alcoholism. One escapes and the other can not. This film is a sad but realistically true statement on the pitfalls of alcoholism and addiction in general. Parents and children of those addicted are the victims as well. Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick and Jack Klugman all give excellent performances. However, Charles Bickford gives the most vivid performance as Remick's father. He remains cold and detached to her addiction until he breaks down and the audience breaks down with him. The film's ending of Jack Lemmon peering through the window is a devastating statement on the effects and the reality that once you enter the world of alcohol you may never return. This is an unusually sensitive treatment than we are used to from Director Blake Edwards. Thanks to J.P. Miller's script, an exceptional cast, Philip H. Lathrop's cinematography and Henry Mancini's score Edward's constructed a very important film yet one hard to watch.

"Days of Wines and Roses" is head and shoulders above any other movies about alcoholism for many reasons, most of which can be summed up in the word "multidimensional". Instead of showing a snapshot in the life of an alcoholic, like "Lost Weekend", for example, "Days of Wines and Roses" follows the entire descent of not one, but two characters, into the depths of addiction. The interplay between man and woman and the progress of their relationship allows for the depiction of many aspects of alcoholism: the casual start; the discovery of a new pleasure; how one person can unwillingly lead another to become an alcoholic; the recovery; the belief that it is possible to have an occasional drink after recovery; the relapse; the different ways two people who love each other can deal with the problem and how they can influence one another for good or for bad. Everything is here. And the ending is astonishingly realistic. Instead of the usual message that everything will turn out fine in the end, the movie makes it clear that, once you become an alcoholic, the outcome is uncertain. You may or you may not recover. This is a powerful and poignant movie that has never been equaled. Recommended.

Hollywood has flubbed it over the years, but this movie hits this topic square on the head. Featuring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick in one of their earlier roles, this a powerfully told tale of the rise and sure fall of a couple who fall in love with one another and then make another marriage with alcohol. The symptoms are all there, as are all the excuses. Jack Klugman has a minor role as the friend who wants to get Lemmon into an AA meeting (back when this was just starting to become accepted.) There are the typical signs of trying to stop drinking, and then the baby arrives, and then the sneaking of the drinks, and everything that goes into the rapid fall into oblivious and depression.

Yes, this is a relatively depressing movie, but its ending only offers a mere hope that Lemmon, who has finally rejected his wife for his own sobriety,...he might make it if he continues to discipline his mind and continue with his program.

It is a sad film but one which is incredibly relevant. I would've liked it if Remick had stuck it out and made a go of the marriage, but she wanted the threesome - herself, her husband and the bottle. Maybe the baby, but her baby was the bottle. Highly recommended, and again a film which could be considered family fare, as there was no profanity, sex, or violence, but an incredibly powerful message. A message in a bottle, as they say, but still as provocative as it was when it was first made. A Great Film!!!

I was drawn to watch this film because the theme, written by Henry Mancini has since become a Jazz standard. I first heard it performed by the organist Mel Rhyne at a Jazz club in NYC, took to it right away, then went out and learned how to play it, and it has been a regular number in my book with my organ trio. - - When I found out that it actually came from a movie, it drew my curiosity, but when I found out the theme of the movie, I held off a bit.

There is no doubt this is a terribly depressing film with a sense of emotional/interpersonal realism that you almost wouldn't expect in a Hollywood film of this era - - The only film that comes close to it perhaps is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". The golden rule of Hollywood films afterall is, "And they all lived happily ever after," however, the film cuts no corners in portraying not only the disease of alcoholism, but its complex dynamics within human relationships as the characters in this film eventually transform from lovers to drinking partners who's relationship is the bottle itself. As the film progresses (without giving too much away) they will have to choose between becoming sober yet losing one another or staying drunk and in love - - both believing that perhaps they can go back to the days of wine and roses... when they were drunk... yet happy, but of course, this is a mere fantasy that the characters are forced to reckon with.

Jack Klugman plays a brilliant AA sponsor - - Lemmon's acting is powerful, convicing - - at times comedic, and at other times deeply disturbing. - - If you get it, be sure to have something funny and bright to put in the VCR afterwords... the biting realism of the film does not redeem the viewer with any cinematic devices to ensure that "good feeling" most movies try to leave us with... in the end you'll pretty much feel as sick, hung over and tormented as the characters... however, you will realize that you have just experienced one of the greatest films of its its era and genre !