Classic 40s Movie: “The Lost Weekend”
September is Classic 40s Movie month. Today’s guest post comes from Liz Warner.
Title: The Lost Weekend
Year: 1945
Writers: Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder (screenplay), Charles R. Jackson (novel)
Lead Actors: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman
Director: Billy Wilder
Plot Summary: A chronic alcoholic writer from New York desperately evades his brother and girlfriend’s attempt to keep him from drinking when he purposely misses his train to instead drink himself into Bellevue over the weekend.
Why I Think This Is A Classic 40s Movie
This movie was Hollywood’s first serious attempt at broaching the taboo subject matter and helped bring social awareness of alcoholism as an addiction and disease. Previously, drunks had typically been portrayed as comedic characters. The darkness of theme even prompted the alcohol industry to offer to buy the film’s rights to prevent its release (and bad PR) in theaters. This film was nominated for seven, and received four Academy Awards, including for Best Director and Best Writing for the adapted screenplay.
My Favorite Moment In The Movie
The chilling and sinister moment at Bellevue, when Bim Nolan explains the DTs:
Bim: There’ll happen to be a little floor show later on around here. It might get on your nerves… Ever have the DT’s?… You will, brother… After all, you’re just a freshman. Wait’ll you’re a sophomore. That’s when you start seeing the little animals. You know that stuff about pink elephants? That’s the bunk. It’s little animals! Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes. See that guy over there? With him it’s beetles. Come the night, he sees beetles crawling all over him. Has to be dark though. It’s like the doctor was just telling me: delirium is a disease of the night. Good night.
My Favorite Dialogue In the Movie
1. Really corny, but par for the course in the day:
Don: Let me work it out my way, I’m trying. I’m trying!
Helen: I know you’re trying, Don. We’re both trying. You’re trying not to drink and I’m trying not to love you.
2. There’s Don the drunk and Don the writer, both grandiose:
Don: It shrinks my liver, doesn’t it, Nat? It pickles my kidneys. Yes. But what does it do to my mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar. Suddenly, I’m above the ordinary. I’m confident, supremely confident. I’m walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. I’m one of the great ones. I’m Michelangelo molding the beard of Moses. I’m Van Gogh painting pure sunlight. I’m Horowitz playing the Emperor Concerto. I’m John Barrymore before the movies got him by the throat. I’m Jesse James and his two brothers. All three of ’em. I’m W. Shakespeare. And out there, it’s not Third Avenue any longer. It’s the Nile, Nat — the Nile, and down it floats the barge of Cleopatra. Come here…
3. For the moment of truth:
Wick: All right, maybe you’re not a writer. Why don’t you do something else?
Don: Sure, take a nice job, public accountant, real estate salesman. I haven’t the guts, Helen. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. I can’t take ‘quiet desperation.’
Key Things You Should Look For When Watching This Movie
— The expressionist film-noir style.
— The eerie score (which was not included in the original release.)
— The first use of a theremin in a soundtrack.
— The compressed time period.
— The powerful use of flashbacks.
— The harrowing visuals of DTs.
— The camera effect of a character walking toward the camera as neon signs pass by.
— The improbable ending (different from and more optimistic than the novel.)
As a writer, I find drunks to be extremely challenging characters as it can be somewhat difficult to find much sympathetic about them. The excellent use of flashbacks works well here to peel back layers of Don’s character, using Helen, to do just that.
Thanks, Liz! To show our gratitude for your guest post, here’s a dash of creative juju for you. Whoosh!
We already have a set of classic 50s movies, 60s Movies, 70s movies, 80s Movies and 90s Movies. This month, we’re working on 40s movies. And thanks to the GITS community, we’ve got 30 movies in the works, one for each day of the month!
Those who I put in bold have already sent me their posts. If you haven’t sent yours to me, please do so as soon as you can!!!
Act of Violence — Eric Rodriguez
Arsenic and Old Lace — Katha
Bicycle Thieves — Megaen Kelly
Brief Encounter — Emily Bonkoski
Casablanca — Paul Graunke
Double Indemnity — Susan Winchell
Five Graves to Cairo — Jeff Gibson
Foreign Correspondent — Doc Kane
His Girl Friday — John Henderson
It’s a Wonderful Life — David Laudenslager
Key Largo — Will King
Laura — Melinda Mahaffey Icden
Les enfants du paradis — Brendan Howley
Mrs. Miniver — Traci Nell Peterson
Notorious — Christine Henton
Now Voyager — Melissa Privette
Out of the Past — Brantley Aufill
Rope — Lance Morgan
The Bank Dick — Bob Saenz
The Best Years of Their Lives — Shaun Parker
The Big Sleep — Ipsita Barik
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir — Annie Wood
The Long Voyage Home — Vincent Martini
The Lost Weekend — Liz Warner
The Maltese Falcon — Roy Gordon
The Ox-Bow Incident — Clay Mitchell
The Philadelphia Story — Kristen Demaline
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock — David Joyner
The Third Man — Harry Cooke
To Have and Have Not — Felicity Flesher
Thanks to everyone who steps up for this ongoing project!
For the original post explaining the series, go here.
For all of the 40s movies featured in the series, go here.
Click REPLY and see you in comments about today’s classic 40s movie!