Film Review: The Lost Weekend (1945)

Films harvesting Oscars on the account of main character being struck with physical or mental affliction is practice many today find annoying, but it is hardly limited to our times. It is long tradition that dates to The Lost Weekeend, celebrated 1945 drama directed by Billy Wilder, best known as the first major Hollywood film to seriously tackle the issue of alcoholism.

Film is based on 1944 semi-autobiographic novel by Charles S. Jackson. The plot is set in New York City where the protagonist Don Birnam (played by Ray Milland) spent years trying to become famous writer. His efforts failed, mainly due to excessive drinking that became even more excessive over alcohol-fuelled writer’s block. Don lives in an apartment which is paid by his brother Wick (Philip Terry) and whom he is going to accompany to weekend in the country after managing to stay sober for ten days. Despite all the precautions by his long-suffering girlfriend Helen St. James (played by Jane Wyman) and Wick, Don manages to get leave apartment and get just enough money to visit nearest bar. From there he would start four-year drinking spree during which he would disgrace himself, cheat and steal in order to get the alcohol, be brought to mental hospital and come right to the edge of suicide.

Billy Wilder is considered as one of the greatest Hollywood directors of 20th Century, but his most popular and recognisable films are comedies. Yet, especially in the first period of his career, Wilder had shown propensity for much more serious overtones and darker subject matter. In case of The Lost Weekend, he was attracted to Jackson’s novel because its theme resonated with his experiences during his previous film Double Indemnity, when he clashed with screenwriter and famous detective novelist Raymond Chandler, a conflict fueled by Chandler’s rampant alcoholism. Until that time, Hollywood didn’t treat alcoholism seriously, partly because US society was still deeply traumatised with the colossal failure to curb it during Prohibition. Hollywood films instead began to treat drinking as mostly harmless fun, like with the protagonists of The Thin Man, or, at worst, portray drunks as source of light ridicule. Wilder and his screenwriter Charles Brackett this time took realistic and, consequently, much darker approach. Despite being shot almost entirely in studios (with some location shots in New York City being thrown for good measure), The Lost Weekend tries to give “slice of life” atmosphere of modern American metropolis with bars, pawn shops and mental hospitals – places that are unavoidable if someone takes the same path as Don Birnam.

Brackett’s script portrays this dark picture of alcoholism in very clever and efficient way, by starting with protagonist who is seemingly normal, with only few odd but increasingly disturbing details, like bottle hidden outside the window, alerting audience that not everything is all right with him. Sharp and intelligent dialogue provides more than sufficient exposition and Wilder later in the film adds Don’s narrating the story how he got to his low point to cynical bartender Nat (played by Howard da Silva) and using flashbacks to further flesh out character and his background. Excellent black-and-white cinematrography by John F. Seitz and haunting musical score by Miklos Rozsa, one of the first to use electronic instrument known as theremin, add a lot to atmosphere of doom that would culminate in scenes near the end, when Don witnesses horrors in hospital ward for alcoholics and, later, when he experiences delirium tremens himself. There is very little humour in the film and it is usually of the darker variety, like the almost surreal scene when Don watches Verdi’s La Traviata in theatre and, thanks to famous “Libbiamo ne’i lieti calici” (a.k.a. “Champagne aria”) gets instantly reminded of his embarrassing and insatiable cravings.

The Lost Weekend is powerful film and it draws a lot of strength from the cast, most notably Ray Milland. Known until that time mostly as something of matinee idol, Milland very reluctantly took this serious and dark role of a man drowning in self-pity, self-degradation and behaviour which is destructive both to himself and people around him. But he approached the challenge with utmost professionalism, including short stint in New York City’s psychiatric hospital where he studied alcoholics and their manners. The result of this effort was truly impressive – he played Don as character who could be deceptively normal, charming when he drinks enough alcohol and pathetic when the alcohol shows its destructive effects. Milland has deservingly won Oscar for his role, which was accompanied with Oscars for Best Film, Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Lost Weekend is strong, but not perfect film. The most problematic is underwritten role of Helen St. James, whose years-long commitment to self-destructive man is never properly explained and character seems like cliché despite the best efforts of Jane Wyman. There are scenes where shows The Lost Weekend shows its age, like Don’s hallucinations, depicted with unconvincing special effects. The finale, in which protagonist and audience are rewarded with happy ending, also looks too conventional and perhaps melodramatic for more cynical viewers of today. Yet, despite those flaws, The Lost Weekend have easily won not only critics of its time (a victory soon confirmed by Grand Prix at the very first Cannes Film Festival), but also the general public, becoming great hit. It is argued that the contributing factor for films success could be found masses of young men who were returning from battlefields of recently finished Second World War and finding that the new battles awaited them during in civilian life, including those with alcohol that made forgetting war horrors deceptively easier. Many of them could identify and relate to with ordeal of the protagonist. But even without its historic context, The Lost Weekend is one of finer pieces of Classic Hollywood history that could be recommended to today’s viewers.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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