The Lost Weekend (film)
| The Lost Weekend | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Billy Wilder |
| Produced by | Charles Brackett |
| Screenplay by | Charles Brackett Billy Wilder |
| Based on | The Lost Weekend by Charles R. Jackson |
| Starring | Ray Milland Jane Wyman |
| Music by | Miklós Rózsa |
| Cinematography | John F. Seitz |
| Edited by | Doane Harrison |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 99 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.25 million |
| Box office | $11,000,000[2] or $4.3 million (US rentals)[3] |
The Lost Weekend is a 1945 American film noir drama film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman. The film was based on Charles R. Jackson's 1944 novel of the same name about an alcoholic writer. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay).
In 2011, The Lost Weekend was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Contents
[show]Plot[edit]
Thursday - An alcoholic New York writer, Don Birnam, is packing for a weekend vacation with his brother Wick, who is trying to discourage his drinking. When Don’s girlfriend Helen comes to see them off, she mentions in passing that she has two tickets for a concert, to which Don urges Wick to accompany her. Don heads for Nat’s Bar, deliberately missing his train, and then sneaks back into the flat to drink some cheap whisky he has bought, avoiding Helen who is worried about him being left alone.
Friday - Back at the bar, the owner (Nat) criticises Don for treating Helen so badly, and Don recalls how he first met her. It was due to a mix-up of cloakroom tickets at the opera-house, where he had to wait for the person who had been given his coat-check in error. This was Helen, with whom he strikes up a romance. When he is due to meet her parents for lunch at a hotel, he loses his nerve and phones a message to her, crying off. Presently he confesses to her that he is two people ‘Don the writer’, who can only write while drunk, and ‘Don the drunk’ who always has to be bailed out by his brother. Still, Helen devotes herself to helping him in his plight. Back in the present day, Don has moved on to another bar, where is caught stealing the money to pay his bill, and thrown out. In the flat, he finds a bottle he had stashed the previous night, and drinks himself into a stupor.
Saturday - Don is broke and all the pawnshops are closed for a public holiday. At Nat’s Bar, he is refused service. In desperation, he visits a girl who had given up on him because he kept letting her down, but now agrees to give him a few dollars out of pity. Leaving her flat, he falls down the stairs and is knocked unconscious.
Sunday - Don wakes up in an alcoholics’ ward, where a cynical member of staff mocks him and other guests at ‘Hangover Plaza’, but offers to help cure his delirium. Don refuses help, and succeeds in escaping from the ward while the staff are occupied with a violent patient.
Monday - Still broke, Don steals a bottle of whisky from a store, and spends the day drinking and hallucinating. Helen returns, alerted by a call from Don's landlady who can hear his screams. Finding him in a delirious state, she vows to look after him and spends the night on his couch.
Tuesday - Don slips out and pawns Helen’s coat - the thing which had first brought them together - in order to buy a gun. She trails him to the pawn shop and finds out from the pawnbroker that he traded the coat for a gun he had pawned earlier. She races to Don's apartment and catches him just before he is about to shoot himself in the bathroom. He tells her their relationship is over, and she glimpses the gun which he has hidden in the bathroom. As they struggle for mastery of the weapon, she reminds Don of her love for him, and her concern that he should stop drinking. She is able to convince him that ‘Don the writer’ and ‘Don the drunk’ are the same person. He finally commits to writing his novel The Bottle, dedicated to her, which will recount the events of the weekend. He drops a cigarette into a glass of whiskey to make it undrinkable, as proof that he is cured.
Cast[edit]
- Ray Milland as Don Birnam
- Jane Wyman as Helen St. James
- Phillip Terry as Wick Birnam
- Howard Da Silva as Nat
- Doris Dowling as Gloria
- Frank Faylen as 'Bim' Nolan
- Mary Young as Mrs. Deveridge
- Anita Sharp-Bolster as Mrs. Foley (billed as Anita Bolster)
- Lilian Fontaine as Mrs. St. James
- Frank Orth as Opera cloak room attendant
- Lewis L. Russell as Mr. St. James
Production and notable features[edit]
Wilder was originally drawn to this material after having worked with Raymond Chandler on the screenplay for Double Indemnity. Chandler was a recovering alcoholic at the time, and the stress and tumultuous relationship with Wilder during the collaboration caused him to go back to drinking. Wilder made the film, in part, to try to explain Chandler to himself.[4]
The film was initially released without a musical score. The audience reception was poor and the film was pulled from distribution. The studio brought in Miklós Rózsa who wrote original score for the picture. Upon re-release, the film was a success. The film's musical score was among the first to feature the theremin, which was used to create the pathos of alcoholism.[5]
The film also made famous the "character walking toward the camera as neon signs pass by" camera effect.
Rights to the film are currently held by Universal Studios, which owns the pre-1950 Paramount sound feature film library via EMKA, Ltd.
Reception[edit]
Box office performance[edit]
The film was a commercial success. Produced on a budget of $1.25 million, it grossed $11,000,000 at the box office,[2] earning $4.3 million in US theatrical rentals.[6]
Awards and honors[edit]
In 2011, The Lost Weekend was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.[7] The Registry said the film was "an uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism" and that it "melded an ｅxpressionistic film-noir style with documentary realism to immerse viewers in the harrowing experiences of an aspiring New York writer willing to do almost anything for a drink."[7]
Academy Awards[edit]
At the 18th Academy Awards in May 1946, The Lost Weekend received seven nominations and won in four categories.
Cannes Film Festival[edit]
This film also shared the 1946 Grand Prix du Festival International du Film at the first Cannes Film Festival and Milland was awarded Best Actor. To date, The Lost Weekend and Marty (1955) are the only films ever to win both the Academy Award for Best Picture and the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival. (Marty received the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm), which, beginning at the 1955 festival, replaced the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film as the highest award.)
American Film Institute[edit]
The Lost Weekend was nominated for the following AFI's 100 Years... lists:
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (1998)
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes (2005):
- one drink's too many, and a hundred's not enough."
- AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores (2005)
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers (2006)
- AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) (2007)
Adaptations[edit]
The Lost Weekend was adapted as a radio play on the January 7, 1946 broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater, starring Milland, Wyman, and Faylen in their original film roles.
On March 10, 1946, three days after winning the Academy Award, Milland appeared as a guest on a radio broadcast of The Jack Benny Show. In a spoof of The Lost Weekend, Ray and Jack Benny played alcoholic twin brothers. Phil Harris, who normally played Jack Benny's hard-drinking bandleader on the show, played the brother who tried to convince Ray and Jack to give up liquor. ("Ladies and gentlemen," said an announcer, "the opinions expressed by Mr. Harris are written in the script and are not necessarily his own.") In the alcoholic ward scene, smart-aleck Frank Nelson played the ward attendant who promised Ray and Jack that they would soon start seeing DT visions of strange animals. When the DT visions appeared (with Mel Blanc providing pig squeals, monkey chatters, and other animal sound effects), Ray chased them off. "Ray, they're gone!" Benny shouted. "What did you do?" Milland replied, "I threw my Oscar at them!"
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