The Lost Weekend (1945)
Though Billy Wilder would become well-known for his 1950s comedies such as The Seven Year Itch (1955) and Some Like It Hot (1959), his two earliest directing efforts have arguably aged better than these later comedies. Of the two, 1944's melodrama Double Indemnity is rightly revered as a masterpiece, and The Lost Weekend, released the following year, has unfairly found itself slightly in the shadow of the former film.
That's not to say it has been overlooked. Indeed, at the time of its release, The Lost Weekend earned Wilder his first Academy Awards - one for Best Director, and one for Best Writer (Adapted Screenplay). Made at the height of what would later be known as the 'film-noir' genre, the whole film is expertly directed by Wilder, and now stands as one of the very best examples of that genre.
The film itself was based on a popular novel released in 1944 by American author Charles R. Jackson, though Billy Wilder was drawn towards the story after working with novelist Raymond Chandler on the screenplay of Double Indemnity. Chandler was a recovering alcoholic, and his reliance on drink had let to a difficult working relationship with his co-writer. With this in mind, Wilder decided that his next film would focus on the realities of dipsomania, and Jackson's novel gave him a good starting point for this.
The eponymous 'Lost Weekend' focuses on writer Don Birnam, a seemingly hopeless alcoholic, and shows the depths that he will go to in order to satisfy his addiction, from deceiving his family and friends to petty thievery to intimidation. Without a convincing lead actor, the film would have lost all credibility, but Ray Milland is an inspired choice as Don Birnam, in undoubtedly the best performance of his career (a role which deservedly netted him the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1946). The very first scene sets the tone for the film, as we see a whiskey bottle dangling by a rope outside a window. Don Birnam and his brother Wick (Philip Terry) are in Don's apartment packing as they prepare to go away for the weekend. Wick is trying to help his brother recover from his alcoholism, and believes he has been without drink for the last ten days. When Don's girlfriend Helen St. James (Jane Wyman) arrives to see them off, she reveals that she has tickets to a concert that afternoon, but nobody to go with. Don persuades his brother that as it's a show that he would enjoy, he should accompany Helen, while Don gets time to get his thoughts together. Wick reluctantly leaves Don alone, satisfied that he has already removed all alcohol and cash from the apartment. As soon as they leave, Don frantically searches the apartment for his secret stashes of booze, only to realise that his brother has already been there before him. We quickly get a notion of how low Don will go when the cleaner calls asking for her wages. After she tells Don where her $10 should be, Don takes the money for himself, telling the cleaner to return after the weekend. Don then takes the money he has stolen to the local bar where he proceeds to get so drunk that he neglects to meet his brother, resulting in him eventually missing their train. As he returns to his apartment he carefully avoids his girlfriend and brother so that he can drink more in his room.
This was quite unusual stuff for a film audience of 1945 to be faced with at the cinema, and though there had been a couple of films looking at alcoholism, none had covered it quite as despairingly as The Lost Weekend does. One of the most telling scenes comes after Don falls down a flight of stairs in a drunken stupor and awakens on the Sunday morning in an alcoholic ward in the hospital. Terrified, he surveys the ward of incoherent babbling drunkards, and finally realises what he has become, yet does not know how to cure himself. In one of the most insightful scenes in the film, the straight-talking nurse, Bim, confides to Don about the prohibition days (which had only ended in 1933):
"You should have seen the place then. Say, this is nothing. Back then we really had a turnover, standing room only. That's what started half these guys off."
It is here that Bim forewarns Don of the terrible hallucinations he will suffer as he becomes more and more reliant on alcohol, telling him he will see imaginary small animals, not the "pink elephants" he might expect. This foreshadows the next day, and one of the most disturbing scenes in the film, as Don returns home with a bottle of whiskey. As he becomes more and more drunk, the inevitable hallucinations begin, following the pattern Bim dictated. As bats fly around the room, Don becomes hysterical in an expertly directed and acted sequence. It's an absolutely gripping scene, and Don's piercing screams are truly chilling.
With all of the deception going on, it would have been too easy for Don's character to fall into the trap of becoming a one-dimensional, unsympathetic character. However, Wilder cleverly chooses to show, through flashbacks, how alcohol has tightened its grip around Don, going right back to the night where he first met his girlfriend Helen, all because he had to leave the show he was watching early because the temptation of drink was too much to bear. We see that he wants to do the right thing, and be the perfectly charming gentleman he has the potential to be, but he finds himself overcome with the overriding compulsion for alcohol. We also see that it's through Don's insecurities that his addiction has developed, with a refreshingly frank decline into complete dependency that is completely atypical of contemporary Hollywood films. Regrettably, no doubt due to the Hays Code, Wilder was unable to end the film on a downbeat note, though to end too positively would have undermined the whole film. It's good to see that there are still question marks around Don's fate as we wonder if he will be able to put the events of this 'lost weekend' behind him, and coming full circle with a mirror of the opening shot, a whiskey bottle dangling from an apartment window, shows a realistic yet ultimately positive future.
That's not to say it has been overlooked. Indeed, at the time of its release, The Lost Weekend earned Wilder his first Academy Awards - one for Best Director, and one for Best Writer (Adapted Screenplay). Made at the height of what would later be known as the 'film-noir' genre, the whole film is expertly directed by Wilder, and now stands as one of the very best examples of that genre.
The film itself was based on a popular novel released in 1944 by American author Charles R. Jackson, though Billy Wilder was drawn towards the story after working with novelist Raymond Chandler on the screenplay of Double Indemnity. Chandler was a recovering alcoholic, and his reliance on drink had let to a difficult working relationship with his co-writer. With this in mind, Wilder decided that his next film would focus on the realities of dipsomania, and Jackson's novel gave him a good starting point for this.
The eponymous 'Lost Weekend' focuses on writer Don Birnam, a seemingly hopeless alcoholic, and shows the depths that he will go to in order to satisfy his addiction, from deceiving his family and friends to petty thievery to intimidation. Without a convincing lead actor, the film would have lost all credibility, but Ray Milland is an inspired choice as Don Birnam, in undoubtedly the best performance of his career (a role which deservedly netted him the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1946). The very first scene sets the tone for the film, as we see a whiskey bottle dangling by a rope outside a window. Don Birnam and his brother Wick (Philip Terry) are in Don's apartment packing as they prepare to go away for the weekend. Wick is trying to help his brother recover from his alcoholism, and believes he has been without drink for the last ten days. When Don's girlfriend Helen St. James (Jane Wyman) arrives to see them off, she reveals that she has tickets to a concert that afternoon, but nobody to go with. Don persuades his brother that as it's a show that he would enjoy, he should accompany Helen, while Don gets time to get his thoughts together. Wick reluctantly leaves Don alone, satisfied that he has already removed all alcohol and cash from the apartment. As soon as they leave, Don frantically searches the apartment for his secret stashes of booze, only to realise that his brother has already been there before him. We quickly get a notion of how low Don will go when the cleaner calls asking for her wages. After she tells Don where her $10 should be, Don takes the money for himself, telling the cleaner to return after the weekend. Don then takes the money he has stolen to the local bar where he proceeds to get so drunk that he neglects to meet his brother, resulting in him eventually missing their train. As he returns to his apartment he carefully avoids his girlfriend and brother so that he can drink more in his room.
This was quite unusual stuff for a film audience of 1945 to be faced with at the cinema, and though there had been a couple of films looking at alcoholism, none had covered it quite as despairingly as The Lost Weekend does. One of the most telling scenes comes after Don falls down a flight of stairs in a drunken stupor and awakens on the Sunday morning in an alcoholic ward in the hospital. Terrified, he surveys the ward of incoherent babbling drunkards, and finally realises what he has become, yet does not know how to cure himself. In one of the most insightful scenes in the film, the straight-talking nurse, Bim, confides to Don about the prohibition days (which had only ended in 1933):"You should have seen the place then. Say, this is nothing. Back then we really had a turnover, standing room only. That's what started half these guys off."
It is here that Bim forewarns Don of the terrible hallucinations he will suffer as he becomes more and more reliant on alcohol, telling him he will see imaginary small animals, not the "pink elephants" he might expect. This foreshadows the next day, and one of the most disturbing scenes in the film, as Don returns home with a bottle of whiskey. As he becomes more and more drunk, the inevitable hallucinations begin, following the pattern Bim dictated. As bats fly around the room, Don becomes hysterical in an expertly directed and acted sequence. It's an absolutely gripping scene, and Don's piercing screams are truly chilling.
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