1945--The Lost Weekend, Billy Wilder

 

1945--The Lost Weekend, Billy Wilder
Nominated: Anchors Aweigh, The Bells of St. Mary's, Mildred Pierce, Spellbound
Should Have Won: The Lost Weekend
Be Sure to See: Dead of Night
"I'm not a drinker; I'm a drunk."--Don Birnam

     A recovering alcoholic who has been on the wagon (or is it off the wagon? Remember when Jerry and George discuss that on “Seinfeld”?) for 10 days is planning on a weekend getaway with his friend to a farm (I guess that's as good as a getaway to a lake). He stays home instead and begins drinking again. It begins to control his life. 

 

     Pretty simple synopsis for such a deep movie. Alcohol controls Don Birnam's life. When the people in his life think the apartment is free of booze, they don't realize he's tied one to a string to dangle out the window or has hidden one in the umbrella stand. At one point he hides one in the ceiling lamp and later forgets where he has hidden it. In my favorite shot in the movie, we see Don in the foreground, lying down in agony from desiring a drink, while above him we see the lamp and remember what he doesn't. 

 

     The Lost Weekend is a very depressing movie. Maybe not to the extreme of Kevin Bacon's The Woodsman but it made me feel gloomy. I've met some people in my life who enjoy the bottle but nothing like how Don does. He wanders the streets looking for open bars that are locked. He finds out the reason the bars are closed despite it being Saturday is for Yon Kapur. 

 

     One thing I found odd, and am not sure how many others will, is early on his friends lock him in the apartment to keep him from leaving to drink. How can you be locked in a room?It reminds me of how Lawrence Talbot asks Wilber to lock him in in Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, but since he's a werewolf I guess he can't figure out locks. It reminds me of that riddle. You are in a car. The doors are locked. The windows are up. There is a brick on the seat beside you. How do you get out of the car? The answer: Unlock the door and step out. I just don't get how you can be locked inside. If you ever leave and lock the door not knowing someone is still home, are they stuck in there until you get back? I don't get it. 

 

     Anyway, he finds some money intended to go to the maid but takes it for alcohol. Even though I just ranted about him being locked in I should say when this happens he is now roaming the street. So I guess my theory is correct; I mean he got out right?

 

     Speaking of Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein I thought the score sounded just like it. I thought the composers were the same but they are not. It is kind of a scary score for a non-horror movie but in its own way it is rather scary. Ray Millard did a great job as the lead but I'll always think of him in my favorite Alfred Hitchcock movie Dial M for Murder. He plays a desperate drunk so well. At one point, Don enters a liquor store before it is open for a quart of rye and has a fight with the employee. And in the flashback scene of how he meets Helen, his coat gets mixed up at the opera. It has booze in it and he has to wait to see who has his ticket and whose ticket he has. It makes for an awkward first impression. And the oddest scene is after he escapes from the alcoholic's ward in the hospital. He hallucinates that a bat and a mouse come out of the wall. It was uncomfortably creepy.

 

     The Lost Weekend was a very good movie that was deep and honest. Along with the scenes in the institution for alcoholics there was a potential suicide. I read that didn't sit well with original audiences but it copped best picture and best actor wins anyway. But the message goes beyond the screen. Millions of people in the real world suffer from alcoholism, too. Do they go to the lengths Don Birnam does for one more drink?