The Lost Weekend (1945, Billy Wilder)
Ray Milland plays Don Birnam, a long-time alcoholic, who has managed to stay “on the wagon” for ten whole days. He appears to be on the mend. His brother Wick (Phillip Terry) wants to take him on a weekend trip to the country, but Don would rather stay home and drink himself silly. Don manages to evade both Wick and Don’s girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman) and goes on a bender. He pawns everything he owns so he can have “just one more drink”, and as he is slowly spiralling out of control, he looks back on his life and forwards to a future he may or may not be alive to see.
Billy Wilder has directed some of my absolute favourite movies. This is one of his earlier films, and it feels like familiar Wilder territory. Flashbacks aside, it plays out over only a few days, and it set primarily in two locations: the apartment where Don lives with his brother, and Nat’s, the local bar where Don is clearly a regular.
Wilder has apparantly claimed that the liquor industry offered the studio $5 million not to release this film, and he claimed that had they offered it to him, he would have accepted. I don’t know whether this is true or not, but it makes for great trivia. There might be something in it though, as there is an excessive amount of drinking in this film.
Milland is fantastic, as always. You can see his deperation grow as the weekend wears on, always trying new ways to get money to satisfy his urge. This desperation builds throughout until finally he takes one last extreme measure to get out of his situation.
There is also one absolutely terrifying scene. After passing out one night, Don finds himself in an alcoholic ward, where the male nurse goes into detail about what he can expect to experience as he dries up. This is then followed by a vivid hallucination where a bat bites the head off a mouse. If this doesn’t make you want to go off booze, I don’t know what will.
My one complaint would be with the ending. Not that I’m all that surprised, but it was a little pat for my taste. Otherwise, superb.
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