The Lost Weekend dvd movie.|
The Lost Weekend buy bestselling dvd movies, videos find reviews, ratings, prices |
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List Price: $14.98 Our Price: $12.99 You Save: $1.99 Features • Black & White • Closed-captioned • DVD-Video • Full Screen • NTSC In Theaters : 1945 DVD Release : 06 February, 2001 |
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The Lost Weekend description "I'm not a drinker--I'm a drunk." These words, and the serious message behind them, were still potent enough in 1945 to shock audiences flocking to The Lost Weekend. The speaker is Don Birnam (Ray Milland), a handsome, talented, articulate alcoholic. The writing team of producer Charles Brackett and director Billy Wilder pull no punches in their depiction of Birnam's massive weekend bender, a tailspin that finds him reeling from his favorite watering hole to Bellevue Hospital. Location shooting in New York helps the street-level atmosphere, especially a sequence in which Birnam, a budding writer, tries to hock his typewriter for booze money. He desperately staggers past shuttered storefronts--it's Yom Kippur, and the pawnshops are closed. Milland, previously known as a lightweight leading man (he'd starred in Wilder's hilarious The Major and the Minor three years earlier), burrows convincingly under the skin of the character, whether waxing poetic about the escape of drinking or screaming his lungs out in the D.T.'s sequence. Wilder, having just made the ultra-noir Double Indemnity, brought a new kind of frankness and darkness to Hollywood's treatment of a social problem. At first the film may have seemed too bold; Paramount Pictures nearly killed the release of the picture after it tested poorly with preview audiences. But once in release, The Lost Weekend became a substantial hit, and won four Oscars: for picture, director, screenplay, and actor. --Robert Horton |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | Dark and Depressing |
| I'm sure this was an important movie in its time, with its breakthrough treatment of the horrors of alcholism. Ray Milland does an excellent job of creating a character who wins our sympathy by his natural looks and class inspite of the horrendous things he does to feed his addiction.
What mostly bothered me is the unrelenting misery of it all. It is hard to really see why the Wyman character would stick with this man for three years if this is all she saw of him. Having played this role, in real life, I can testify that it takes a lot of good to put up with this much bad. It would have been a much more interesting and realistic film if they had shown the happy times, when Milland was sober and able to love this very fine woman -- the emotional roller coaster that alcholics can put their loved ones through. Alcoholics are often charming, talented people as the Milland character is and they can be very affectionate and winning. But we don't see any of that beyond the first few minutes of their meeting at the opera. So the film gives us no reason to justify the faithfulness of this woman. She is not shown as needy or masochistic--that would have made the relationship more believable and interesting. However when the film came out, not as much was known about alcholism and co-dependancy as we now know. As meritorious as it may be to show explicitly the downside of alcoholism, I question the wisdom of showing only the dark side, without the brightness which makes the dark even more poignant. If we had seen something of his true talent or his true ability to care about anyone but himself, we might care more about his downward plunge. We don't get enough back story, either, to explain why this man has succombed so radically to alcohol. We hear that he didn't get much success in his early attempts at writing, but that's not uncommon and all failed writers don't hit the bottle; some keep on and eventually succeed. Others get jobs. As far as we know he's from a good family, and has the love and support of his brother. Psychologically it leaves a lot to be desired. As "entertainment" it is not a lot of fun to watch. Two hours of a man wanting alcohol and doing anything to get it is ultimately sort of boring. I much preferred "The Days of Wine and Roses" which deals with the same theme. However it is not as bad as "Leaving Las Vegas" which really drags you through the muck. I agree with others that the tacked on ending is totally unrealistic but they say Wilder had no choice. I think the value of the film lies in its contribution to the ethos of the time. It's certainly not something I'd want to see again. |
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