Sorry but this is a long post.
It's Movie Time!
The theme of today's post is alcoholism.
Most of the time in classic movies, drinking was treated as a sophisticated thing to do with men in tuxedos clinking crystal glasses with women in shimmering gowns while engaging in whitty repartee.
Drinking in movies was not always so glamorous and cool. There was some poor slob who was in a drunken stupor because some dame done him wrong or some man did her dirty or some damn thing like that.
Movies regarded any drinking problems as a sign of other bad life choices. The idea that drinking in and of itself could be the problem was not often touched upon.
I wrote here 4 years ago about Days of Wine and Roses, Directed by Blake Edwards, a man better known for his comedies, it was a dark, raw exploration of alcoholism. Before Edwards made his movie in 1962, another director also known for his more comic films took a swing at the dire consequences of alcoholism.
Directed by Billy Wilder from 1945, that movie was The Lost Weekend.
Ray Milland is Don Birnam, an alcoholic New York writer.
Don's girlfriend Helen and his brother Wick are doing their damnedest to keep Don sober but his tenacity to keep a bottle of whiskey somewhere within reach is daunting. Helen and Wick try to stay ahead of his hiding places for his bottles but Don is unrelenting in his efforts to keep drinking.
Sometimes Don forgets where he's hidden his own booze.
The movie begins on a Thursday when Wick and Don are supposed to leave town for a vacation. Don finagles a way to get separated from Wick, staying behind to enjoy a bottle of rye.
By Friday, Don has downed his cache of liquor (except for one bottle he forgets he hid in a hanging light fixture.) He steals some money Don has left for the cleaning lady to go buy more at Nat's Bar.
Don tells Nat the story of how he first met Helen and impresses her that he's a writer even though he's written precious little due to his drinking. Don tells Nat he's going to go back home and work on that novel already and make Helen proud of him again.
By Saturday, the paper in the typewriter is still blank and the last bottles he bought are empty.
Don has no concept of the passing of time when he's drunk.
Don goes to a night club to drink but has no money to pay for them so he attempts to steal money from a woman's purse. Don's caught and he's tossed out onto the street.
Don begs money off a prostitute but drunk and unsteady on his feet, he falls down a flight of stairs.
On Sunday, Don wakes up in a hospital alcoholics' ward, where he endures the mockery of the attendants and the quivering convulsions of alcohol withdrawal. He escapes from the ward.
He steals a bottle of booze from a store but he experiences nightmarish hallucinations and screams in terror. Those screams led to a neighbor calling Helen. Helen finds him collapsed on the floor in a delirious state.
Well, Don has made it to Tuesday and has given up. He's gotten a gun to shoot himself but Helen intervenes, pleads with him.
Don pours a glass, then drops a cigarette in the liquor and gets to work writing at his typewriter, writing the story of his gruesome descent into madness over one terrible lost weekend.
Wow! That was rough. I also did not cover every step in Don's descent. There's so much more and so much worse than what I related above.
While the film was primarily shot at Paramount studios, exteriors were filmed on location on the streets of New York City as well as the alcoholic ward in Bellevue Hospital. Bellevue would deny such access to future films.
The film was based on book by Charles Jackson whose story mirrors that of Don Birnam. The book also implies that Don is homosexual which the movie could not acknowledge due to the movie production code.
The liquor industry worked hard against The Lost Weekend even before its release. Liquor interests allegedly enlisted gangster Frank Costello to offer Paramount $5 million to buy the film's negative in order to burn it. Paramount said "no" but director Billy Wilder quipped he would've burned the negative himself for $5 million.
If he had done that, then The Lost Weekend would not have gone on to win Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
The Lost Weekend is not an easy movie to watch but that's the point. Watching Ray Milland take Don Birnam on his horrible descent is a visceral experience. You can feel the desperation, smell the sweat and stale booze as Don falls further into this addiction. The ending feels a bit tacked on to give us and Don some hope but apparently that's how it really went down for Charles Jackson who wrote the book.
Next up, we go on another bender with another movie with a most intriguing title: Merrily We Go to Hell, a pre-code 1932 drama. (Sometimes the movie is labeled as "romantic comedy" but it's neither romantic or a comedy. It's one of those "no one is happy" movies!)
"Merrily we go to hell" is a favorite and frequent drinking toast that Fredric March's character likes to give.
The picture's title is an example of the sensationalistic titles that were common in the pre-Code era. Many newspapers refused to publicize the film because of its racy title
Jerry Corbett (Fredric March), a Chicago reporter and self-styled playwright, meets heiress Joan Prentice (Sylvia Sidney) at a party and they begin dating.
Jerry soon proposes to Joan, and even though he's poor as hell and he's an alcoholic, Joan accepts his marriage proposal, against the objections of her father.
Jerry does not nothing to change her dad's mind.
He gets wasted before their engagement party and makes a mess of that. But Joan stands by him anyway.
After several rejections, Jerry sells a play that's gonna be produced on Broadway. It's off to New York City for Jerry and Joan but things take a turn when Jerry has an affair with the plya's lead actress, Claire. And he still has a bad habit of getting drunk way too often.
Joan continues to stand by Jerry but declares if he wants an open marriage, then by God she'll go off and have her own affairs.
Jerry continues to fuck around in a drunken haze while Joan finds her own boy toy to play with and...
Damn! No one in the movie is happy!
Joan becomes pregnant and her doctor warns her that her poor health does not bode well for this pregnancy. Unable to break Jerry of his infatuation with both Claire and the bottle, Joan returns to Chicago to live with her father.
Jerry cannot write a follow up play and realizes he's hit rock bottom.
Committing himself to sobriety, he returns to Chicago to win Joan back. Her father keeps them apart even though Joan has been pleading to see Jerry again.
We find out that Joan's baby died right after childbirth and Joan herself is near death and...
Jesus! This movie is so sad!
A repentant Jerry finally gets through to see Joan as he pledges his love to her and they kiss.
OK, that was a lot!
Yep, that is Cary Grant as Charlie Baxter, Joan's would be fling.
Merrily We Go to Hell was directed by Dorothy Arzner, the only female director to work within the studio system during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Merrily We Go to Hell joins other pre-Code films in which open marriage or the double standard regarding sex are part of the storyline. In films such as Party Husband (1931), The Divorcee (1930), Ex-Lady (1933) and Illicit (1931), husbands and wives openly commit adultery under the noses of their partners without moral judgement passed on the women.
While the film was not ostensibly about Jerry's alcoholism, it's clear from the very first scene that drinking is an inescapable addiction.
OK, those two movies were a lot!
God, I need a drink!
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