Customer Reviews

The Lost Weekend

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Ray Milland is not really thought of as a great actor. He was a fine, competent leading man, but he rarely gave an outstanding performance. Lost Weekend shows that he was a far better actor than was usually apparent. Milland's performance is wonderfully realistic and daring also, for his character is not especially sympathetic. There is no glamour in the situations he faces. He is dirty, seedy and at times obnoxious. This is a portrait of a drunk which was and is untypical. Most often drunks are portrayed as comic characters, but there is little humour in the life shown in Lost Weekend, only degradation.

This all rather makes the film sound dull and unappealing. It is anything but. Often with Billy Wilder's films it is the dialogue which is most memorable and Lost Weekend has some great lines. I particularly enjoyed the language and forties slang of sympathetic bad girl Doris Dowling. It seems amazing that Wilder, who co-wrote the film, grew up in Austria. He must have really listened to those around him to pick up all the nuances of contemporary speech.

I would not say that Lost Weekend is Wilder's best film. The story is a little bit too predictable. This is always the case with message films. Here the message is the horrors of alcoholism, so we rather know where we're going. Nevertheless it is a fine film by one of the finest directors ever.

The quality of the DVD is very good. It has few extras, just a trailer really, but the quality of the picture and sound is superb. My only quibble is with Universal who issue the DVD and no doubt own the rights to the film. They should not put their globe symbol at the beginning of the film in front of the Paramount mountain. This might seem petty, but it is still `A Paramount Picture' whoever owns it now.

I can understand why the studio did not want to release "The Lost Weekend" in 1945: it's a gritty and realistic (sometimes horrifyingly so) account of an alcoholic's weekend binge. Going against years of movies that portrayed drunkeness as something cute and harmless, this movie pulls no punches in illustrating to what depths a man will stoop when he just has to have a drink.

There's a story told about the filming of "LW," in which another of Ray Milland's on-the-street takes were ruined when someone recognized him. Instead of asking for his autograph, though, the woman offered to bring him back to her apartment for a drink. She didn't believe him when he said he was making a movie about a drunk; she thought the actor was down on his luck and really *was* a drunk. Billy Wilder came out from behind the hidden camera and finally set her straight. This is a good illustration of the power of Milland's performance; his work is quite extraordinary. Jane Wyman as his girlfriend Helen does a good job with a small role, as does Phillip Terry as Don's brother Wick.

While the drama of the movie moves along at a fevered pitch, it really starts to build to a level of unbearable tension when Helen goes to retrieve her coat (which Don has stolen) from the pawnbroker, only to discover Don didn't trade it for money for booze, but rather a gun he had pawned earlier. After his earlier talk of putting a bullet through his head, the audience and Helen realize at the same time what his intentions are, and we find ourselves as anxious as Helen as she races back to his apartment. She gets there in time, and the two play a game of cat and mouse, warily stepping around each other as he tries to get her to leave, and she tries to get to the gun first.

After winding things up so tightly, though, the movie ends with an anti-climax: Helen gives Don her same old inspirational speech about his having the talent to make a go of it as a writer, and suddenly, this time he believes her, vowing once again (and we're to assume that this time it took) to give up drinking and make something of himself. He gives us a pat little explanation of his alcoholism, and ends by saying gee, he feels sorry for all those other drunks out in NYC that think they're fooling everyone. Fade to black.

I realize this is a typical Hollywood ending of the time (1945), with everything working out okay in the end, but I felt cheated. I had been so captivated by this true to life story, with nothing glossed over, that the ending didn't ring true at all. Strange as it may sound, I think I would have almost preferred Don to put a bullet in his head. It would have felt much more realistic than him basically saying, "You're right Helen, I will stop drinking and write that book," and with a snap of the fingers, put his drunken ways behind him.

This is my only complaint about the movie, and it is an extremely small one; don't let my thoughts about the ending stop you from watching this film. It is an astonishing movie even in this day and age, even more so when you consider it was made almost 60 years ago.

Billy Wilder pulls no punches in showing the horrors of alcoholism in "The Lost Weekend." So ahead of its time was this film upon its original release that it still holds up pretty well to modern sensibilities.

Writer Don Birnam (Ray Milland) is an alcoholic. Both his brother, Wick (Phillip Terry), and his girlfriend, Helen St. James (Jane Wyman), have tried to get him to sober up. Don is making progress but he gives into his demons once more during one harrowing weekend. During this time, Don lies, steals, and does whatever he can to get his hands on booze and more booze. After staying at the drunk ward of a hospital and experiencing a series of terrifying hallucinations, his journey enters even darker territory when he contemplates ending his life

Wilder's unwavering direction coupled with Milland's remarkable performance gives "The Lost Weekend" a dramatic power that disturbs and frightens. The scenes in the film are so well staged that they attain a heightened sense of realism that is impressive for a non-documentary. The only problem with "The Lost Weekend" is an ending that feels a little too neat and tidy. Specifically, Don's final proclamation has a dubious ring to it. Wilder undoubtedly wanted to end his film on a hopeful note but the ending just feels awkward. Yet, even though "The Lost Weekend" ends oddly, its depiction of one man's total meltdown remains a powerful viewing experience to this very day.

Alcoholism has been seen on movies for a very long time. Many people just haven't realized it because it was never something to care much for. Drinking was often the stuff of comedy. This was because most of what we saw about it was the effects while someone was drunk and making fools of themselves. In 1945, director Billy Wilder made a film called "The Lost Weekend", that dealt with the subject in a different light. The movie was not expected to be a hit, having been a controversial project and being poorly received by preview audiences. But it turned out to be a surprise hit with critics and won academy awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Actor. Here are some reasons as to why this movie is great, along with some of its cons.

"You know, the circle is the perfect geometric figure. No end, no beginning." The figure of a circle is used often in the movie, primarily in the plot. The story revolves around that of a failed writer (Ray Milland, who I discuss in detail later) and his trouble with alcohol. The usage of a circular plot structure suggests that the life of a drunk is followed by one binge after another, with no start and no finish. It is also used when Don is under alcohol's spell. An example is the usage of rings from the shot glasses to show passage of time.

The lead performance: After years of acting, Milland hit it big as Don Birnam, the unsuccessful, alcoholic writer who goes on a drinking binge ("I'm not a drinker, I'm a drunk"). Milland's character is a tortured one, who claims that there are, figuratively, two of him: Don the writer and Don drunk. Milland can be melodramatic in his performance, but what do you expect from a film like this? One has to congratulate Milland for having the guts to take this role, for his character is a liar and thief who only cares about and will do anything for one more drink. It is amazing how he is able to be despicable and still allow us to sympathize with his character. Like many male leads in Wilder's films, Don Brinam is flawed in how he is weak and, though he tries not to, easily succumbs to the bottle ("The reason is me- what I am, or rather what I'm not). Though other great male performances were done in 1945, Milland was deserving of his Oscar.

Supporting Cast: Jane Wyman, as Don's girl Helen, is not as involved, in my humble opinion, as Milland is, but is still able to turn out well. The problem is that her character doesn't get to do much, except try to talk to Don when he is hungover. The supporting cast does better, starting with Wick (Phillip Terry), Don's caring and dedicated brother, who is annoyed by his drinking yet allows him to stay at his apartment ("I went over the apartment with a fine-tooth comb - the places he can figure out"). A scene-stealer is Nat (Howard da Silva), a bartender who is friendly to Don but is also irritated by his unkindness to women and his alcoholism ("One's too many and a hundred's not enough!"). There is also Gloria (Doris Dowling), a slim, attractive woman who visits Nat's place to wait for other men. (She is most likely a female escort). She uses a lot of word abbreviations, such as "ridick" for ridiculous or "natch" for naturally. My favorite appearance was by an uncredited Frank Faylen as "Bim", a [seemingly] homosexual male nurse at an alcoholic ward called "Hangover Plaza". He sets the stage for Don by telling him "...you're just a freshman. Wait'll you're a sophomore. That's when you start seeing the little animals."

Feel: The movie's black and white cinematography is shot in a way that it presents the feeling of a nightmare. This way is difficult to explain, except that this illusion is presented most effectively in black and white and would be lost in a color film. This is probably because B & W, I think, is more moody. It's also interesting how several scenes are shot through whiskey bottles or shot glasses.

Music Score: It seems odd to talk about the music, but it is important. It was the first to use a theremin, an instrument that produces a strange wailing sound. Used in the nightmare scenes, it would later be familiar with fans of `50's sci-fi films. However, the non-thermin score is also one of the few downsides. Sometimes, especially during the opening credits, it feels too upbeat, too much like a film noir.

"The Lost Weekend" is by no means a cheerful movie. It does have some great dialogue (A trademark of Wilder films), but overall it's as entertaining and upbeat as a brain tumor. In addition to being depressing, it's also melodramatic, but that's a minor problem. I rather have a movie that tries to go for realism and honesty in this subject. Also, being a nearly 60 year-old movie and a groundbreaker in this subject, it is bound to have dated in some respects.

(Major plot spoilers ahead) But wait, am I a hypocrite? After all, it can be said that the ending feels too upbeat and optimistic. Many complain about this and it does indeed seem to be like this. But is it? A person who is a heavy drinker, I think, can't stop in the blink of an eye. However, this time he has a cause and an idea for writing and that will definitely help him.

A mixed bag, no doubt. But there is more good than bad. This is one that grows with repeated viewing. Wilder was certainly a great director, one who could make you as easily affected as he could make you laugh. He will be missed very much.

This is one powerful movie that must have shocked the audience of those days and yet the message is so relevant and true to this day. We get a glimpse of what the life of an alcoholic can be like and for me it was almost like watching a truly scary horror film. It has been said that Billy Wilder did this film because he got inspiration from his co-writer in his previous masterpiece "Double Indemnity", Raymond Chandler, who also had a problem with the bottle. It wouldn't surprise me if he had Chandler totally in mind for the part of Birnam too as the two had a tough time working with each other on the screenplay for that movie.

However, unlike some others I thought the ending was very good because if you think about it, the movie ends as it began with Birnam promising that he had changed after another one of his binges. In fact, I'm unconvinced that there actually was a happy ending here as it is ambiguous enough to suggest that things haven't really changed but that things could simply be repeating themselves over and over again. In the middle of the film we get Birnam telling the bartender in a flashback how he met up with his long-suffering girlfriend and how he was able because of her to stop drinking for weeks until the pressure of meeting up with the potential in-laws got him so scared that he returned to the bottle. All I saw at the ending was something similar where Birnam once again makes a promise but there was nothing to suggest that he would keep it the next time another stressful incident in his life arises.

I thought the ending was ominous and so true of anyone struggling with addiction in that one never really knows if one has really licked it but one has to keep on getting up every time without giving up and keep on trying to the end. Sounds a lot like life in general and yet so true of addicts. For this reason, I felt that this was a great movie with a great script, great acting, great directing and hence overall an excellent work of art with a very good message about life.

The problem I have is with the picture and sound quality of this dvd which hasn't been restored at all resulting in many imperfections at many parts of the film and although the sound quality is alright as far as Dolby Digital Mono quality goes, it would have been much better had a restored version with 5.1 or THX options be included. As it is, this great film is not deserving of such a poor dvd transfer and here's hoping they get together to properly restore both the sound and especially the picture quality of this classic film.

As it stands though I cannot recommend this dvd version of this film and I suggest you wait for a much better restored version with decent special or bonus features to be released.

Winner of four academy awards in 1945 including best picture and best actor for Ray Milland, The Lost Weekend is a searing look at alcoholism through the eyes of a painfully conflicted and tortured man. Remarkably, the film still holds up even today, even though some viewers may find that Milland has a tendency to overact in the more startlingly realistic scenes.

But even with the film's minor shortcomings, and placed in the context of the time, The Lost Weekend is still revolutionary, and ground-breaking - because it was the first time that Hollywood had seriously tackled the taboo subject and created social awareness of alcoholism as a modern illness.

Audiences viewed the film's subject matter as sensational, contentious, audacious, and starkly real. The drab, gritty black and white cinematography of the back lanes of Manhattan emphasizes the threatening, warping, and tormenting power of alcohol, as some of the booze-soaked scenes were shot through or in the presence of numerous whiskey bottles and shot glasses.

Don Birnam (Milland) is an alcoholic writer, who has been living on the edge. Relying on financial support from his kindly brother Wick (Phillip Terry), his façade of upper middle class success is as thin as his self-control. Both are about to go away for a weekend in the country, but Don has other things on his mind. A holiday is the last thing he's thinking about as he aches to sneak a drink from a whisky bottle that dangles from a rope outside of his bedroom window.

Arriving at the apartment is Don's girlfriend, Helen St. James (Jane Wyman), who has tickets to a Carnegie Hall concert that night. Don persuades Wick and Helen to go to the concert without him, hoping to find one of his well-hidden bottles of booze. But when Wick and Helen go to the concert, Don discovers that Wick has gotten rid of the liquor.

Don has no money, so he can't visit the neighborhood bar. When he finds the cleaning lady's money hidden in the sugar bowl, he grabs it and heads off to Nat's Bar, where Nat (Howard Da Silva), a bartender who has seen it all, starts giving him shots of whiskey even though he knows that Don as a serious drinking problem. Soon Don plunges into an alcoholic haze, where he remembers his past when he first met Helen and then ends up wondering the streets with his boozing landing him in a harrowing Bellevue Hospital, managed by a cynical attendant named Bim (Frank Faylen).

Don is lucky that he has Helen to support him, but even her rigorous loyalty can't keep Don off the "sauce." And indeed it is Jane Wyman who ironically gives the stronger performance, she never lets Don's drunken raging frighten and intimidate her and it is only through her unconditional love that Don is finally able to achieve some sort of sober redemption.

Milland is still riveting though, as a man who loves to drink and who feels as though alcohol gives him the power to conquer the world. He always means to quit, but never quite can, for reasons we understand and relate to, and it's simply heartrending to see the bottle take out the blessings of his life. He's sneaky, nasty, and will do anything to get that one next drink; he even resorts to stealing a woman's purse at a local bar just for a measly ten bucks.

The Lost Weekend remains a scary, grim, and grimy account of an alcoholic writer's "lost weekend." What makes the film so gripping is the brilliance with which Wilder uses John F Seitz's camerawork to range from an unvarnished portrait of New York brutally stripped of all glamour, and Milland's frantic trudge along Third Avenue on Yom Kippur in search of an open pawnshop to sell his type writer, is one of the best scenes in the film.

Even more significant is how well the film has aged over more than half a century. While treatment options for alcoholics have changed, and so much more is known about alcoholism as a disease, the movie remains right on the mark in its portrayal of alcoholism from the perspective of the tortured and tormented addict. Mike Leonard October 05.

Billy Wilder electrified the film world in 1944 with his brutally realistic film about lust and greed, "Double Indemnity." Just one year later he reemerged with another compelling tale from life's dark side, "The Lost Weekend." In the 1945 Oscar sweepstakes "Weekend" exceeded his preceding breakthrough film by sweeping all the major categories of Best Film, Best Actor, with British star Ray Milland delivering his role of a lifetime, Best Director for the crafty Wilder,and Best Adapted Screenplay with Wilder sharing honors with longtime partner Charles Brackett from a hard-hitting bestseller penned by Charles Jackson.

The main action surrounds a fall weekend in which presumably recovering alcoholic Milland is to accompany brother Phillip Terry to Penn Station and a presumably quiet weekend in the country. Instead he sneaks out of his New York apartment and enters a journey into the bowels of hell. The haunting musical score by Miklos Rosza depicts the urgency of the moment, resembling that of his masterwork "Spellbound." The black and white photography is intentionally gray and brooding throughout, focusing on New York's streets. Milland experiences the ultimate in desperation, spending time in the city's drunk ward, observing hallucinations in the form of a rat on his wall and vultures flying overhead, appropriate symbols of his desperation state, and failing to obtain needed alcoholic succor at a critical interval due to the closing of liquor stores due to the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday.

While Milland is superb in his presentation of a frightened would be novelist whose cleverness makes it more difficult than ever to keep his sought after rye whiskey away from him, a constellation of talented players assist in generating a bona fide Hollywood classic. Phillip Terry plays his loving, brooding brother with just the proper measure of anger merging with frustration. Jane Wyman is excellent as his sensitively attuned, intelligent girlfriend determined to spare him from ultimate self-destruction. Howard di Silva plays the outwardly hard-bitten, inwardly caring bartender with consummate skill. He emerges with one of the film's most memorable lines when, after pouring Milland a drink, he exclaims, "If you had enough money you'd kill yourself in a month." Doris Dowling is brilliant as a lonely prostitute living off the largesse of lonely older men who dreams of a better life and romance with Milland, who seeks to borrow money from her when his liquor and financial resources vanish.

Wilder proves in this film, as he did earlier with "Double Indemnity" and later with "Sunset Boulevard" and "The Apartment" that he was one of the cinema's reigning masters of the rugged, hard-edged side of human experience. This is a cannot miss dramatic masterpiece which never fails to find the mark.

This is the film that earned Ray Milland an Oscar for Best Actor in 1946 portraying a convincing alcoholic. What a brilliant, superb performance by Mr. Milland. I was simply entranced by the film's realism especially for Hollywood in the mid-1940s, and I was further captivated by the performance of one its classic leading actors, Ray Milland. I highly recommend this film for those who would enjoy a sobering, intelligent story.

I rarely watch older films. By "older" films, I mean movies made before 1960. It's not due to some prejudice on my part about black and white cinematography: my inability to view many early films arises from the fact that far too many of these movies are so melodramatic. You know what I mean: lots of swooning, hands swept across foreheads, and exaggerated body movements all set to crashing waves of syrupy orchestral music. Those swelling violins alone are enough to set my teeth on edge anytime I watch an old film, but occasionally a picture overcomes all of these pet peeves of mine and truly delivers on multiple levels. "The Lost Weekend" is one of those films. Sure, the emoting is there, as is the music and the swooning, but this compelling story about an alcoholic at the end of his rope always pulls at my heartstrings. I am going to start seeking out some classic older films that will tickle my fancy, but I don't expect to find too many of them with the power of "The Lost Weekend."

Ray Milland (an actor who starred in several schlockfests at the end of his career, such as "Frogs") plays Don Birnam, a painfully insecure writer who just can't make his life work. Birnam quickly learned that the soothing balm of alcohol took the edge off his various phobias, but he just as quickly learned that drinking took the edge off his talent, too. For years, Birnam never wandered far from the neighborhood bar or the liquor store, secure in the knowledge that a bottle of rye was always within reach. His brother Wick not only financially supports his boozy sibling; he also covers for him when the drinking causes problems. Of course, Don doesn't care much about his brother one way or the other as long as he gets his shot of whisky when he needs it. Another problem for Don appears in the form of Helen St. James (played by an enormously cute Jane Wyman), a successful writer at Time magazine who accidentally met Don at the opera one night and has since latched on to him despite his chronic alcoholism. When Birnam isn't trying to outwit Wick or Helen, he's down at the local bar spouting alcoholic witticisms to Nat the bartender (played wonderfully by Howard Da Silva) and flirting with a beautiful barfly named Gloria. We learn most of the story through a flashback sequence told by Birnam as he ties on yet another massive drunk.

The film starts with a nervous Don packing for a weekend trip with brother Wick, where the two siblings hope to get out of New York City for a nice change of pace. Of course, Don doesn't want to go because he's not sure he can survive without ready access to booze. In fact, during this opening sequence we see Don hiding a bottle of whisky from his brother by hanging it from a piece of string outside his window. In order to start drinking, Birnam convinces Wick and Helen to go to a concert, a little piece of trickery that is only the beginning of the devious schemes hatched by Don throughout the film. Thus begins a downward spiral over the course of a four-day weekend, as Don resorts to outright theft, robbery, and beggary in order to secure just one more drink. This bender comes with a high price, though: Don suffers excruciating blackouts, nearly gets himself arrested, and ends up in the alky ward at the city asylum. The capper is Birnam's bout with the DTs in his apartment, an incident that reduces him to a shattered, screaming wreck. "The Lost Weekend" is a memorable experience.

Only a person who has never had a problem with alcohol would criticize some of Birnam's philosophical musings about drinking. There is a great bit of dialogue where Birnam tells Nat why he drinks, about how alcohol makes a person feel as though he or she is a great artist on top of the world. Believe me, this is how an alcoholic feels when they tie one on, at least in the early euphoric stages of the addiction. Birnam's enthrallment for rituals of drinking is also dead on; such as his fascination about the rings the shot glass leaves on the bar and the propensity to "see" liquor in the most mundane circumstances (look for the dancing raincoats with the rye bottle in the pocket). An alcoholic does not merely work at his trade part-time; the process of drinking is a full-time job built on a series of elaborate rituals that reinforce this nefarious addiction. "The Lost Weekend" captures the intricacies of alcoholism in a way few films ever have. Unfortunately, the movie lost some of its power due to some hokey effects and a conclusion that had me throwing my hands up in disbelief.

The DVD release is quite good for a film nearly sixty years old. There is a trailer and cast biographies included here, as well as a short bio for director Billy Wilder. The transfer looks pretty good, although I thought I saw a few scenes where certain parts of the picture looked a tad blurry. "The Lost Weekend" won four Oscars: Best Actor for Ray Milland, Best Picture, Best Screenplay, and Best Director for Billy Wilder. As far as I can see, this movie deserves its accolades. If you haven't seen "The Lost Weekend," you are definitely missing out on a great film loaded with grim atmosphere, great dialogue, eerie background music, and excellent performances.

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.