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The Lost Weekend Overview:

The Lost Weekend (1945) was a Drama - Film Adaptation Film directed by Billy Wilder and produced by Charles Brackett.

The film was based on the novel of the same name written by Charles R. Jackson published in 1944.

SYNOPSIS

This portrait of alcohol's deadly grip is perhaps the greatest of the social-problem films, and a rewarding, harrowing movie experience. Milland gives the performance of a lifetime as a writer who encounters the depths of his soul on a weekend alone in New York. When his brother (Terry) goes on vacation, leaving Milland alone to write, the bottles come out before the typewriter. Before the weekend is over, Milland will have lost his money, his freedom, and his grip on reality as he descends into the alcoholic abyss. Justly praised upon its first, limited release, the movie was almost scrapped when the alcoholic beverage industry is offered millions for the negative, and studio executives questioned its commercial potential. Milland explored the darkest corners of society researching the role, spending the night in New York's Bellevue Hospital (the setting for some of the most disturbing sequences) on the alcoholic ward. Based on Charles Jackson's 1944 novel.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

The Lost Weekend was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2011.

Academy Awards 1945 --- Ceremony Number 18 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best ActorRay MillandWon
Best CinematographyJohn F. SeitzNominated
Best DirectorBilly WilderWon
Best Film EditingDoane HarrisonNominated
Best Music - ScoringMiklos RozsaNominated
Best PictureParamountWon
Best WritingCharles Brackett, Billy WilderWon
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The Lost Weekend BlogHub Articles:

The Lost Weekend (1945) and Alcohol The Femme Fatale

By 4 Star Film Fan on Feb 10, 2021 From 4 Star Films

It might be a futile exercise but at least for a brief moment, I will attempt to get back into the headspace from when I first came upon Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend. I was younger then. Bright-eyed and a budding cinephile. It is the film that defined Ray Milland’s entire filmography ... Read full article

Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend (1945)

By Carol Martinheira on Mar 1, 2018 From The Old Hollywood Garden

Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend (1945) On March 1, 2018March 1, 2018 By CarolIn Uncategorized Because it’s Oscar season, I wanted to talk about one of my all-time favorite performances in the Best Actor in a Leading Role category, the wonderful Ray Milland in The Los... Read full article

The Lost Weekend (1945)

By Cameron on Apr 10, 2015 From The Blonde At The Film

via: http://screeninsight.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-lost-weekend-billy-wilder-1945.html  Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own. In 1945, The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called The Lost Weekend a “shatteringly realistic and morbidly fascinating film…an illustration of ... Read full article

The Lost Weekend (1945)

By Cameron on Apr 10, 2015 From The Blonde At The Film

via: http://screeninsight.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-lost-weekend-billy-wilder-1945.html  Unless otherwise noted, all images are my own. In 1945, The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called The Lost Weekend a “shatteringly realistic and morbidly fascinating film…an illustration of ... Read full article

The Lost Weekend

By Michael on Jan 20, 2014 From Le Mot du Cinephiliaque

The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder, 1945) The film recounts the life of an alcoholic New York writer, Don Birnam (Ray Milland), over the last half of a six-year period, and in particular on a weekend alcoholic binge. Preparing for a weekend away, Don and his brother Wick (Philip Terry), Don can&#82... Read full article

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The Lost Weekend Quotes:

Don Birnam: Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. I can't take quiet desperation!
Don Birnam: It shrinks my liver, doesn't it, Nat? It pickles my kidneys, yeah. But what it does to the mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar. Suddenly I'm above the ordinary. I'm competent. I'm walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. I'm one of the great ones. I'm Michaelangelo, molding the beard of Moses. I'm Van Gogh painting pure sunlight. I'm Horowitz, playing the Emperor Concerto. I'm John Barrymore before movies got him by the throat. I'm Jesse James and his two brothers, all three of them. I'm W. Shakespeare. And out there it's not Third Avenue any longer, it's the Nile. Nat, it's the Nile and down it moves the barge of Cleopatra.
Don Birnam: I'm not a drinker;I'm a drunk.
Nat: One's too many an' a hundred's not enough.
[Nat moves to wipe away the circle of whisky from Don Birnam's glass]
Don Birnam: Don't wipe it away, Nat. Let me have my little vicious circle. You know, the circle is the perfect geometric figure. No end, no beginning.
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The Lost Weekend Facts
Billy Wilder claimed the liquor industry offered Paramount $5 million to not release the film; he also suggested that he would have accepted, had they offered it to him.
Don quotes twice from William Shakespeare when he is in Nat's bar. The first quote "Purple the sails, and so perfumed ... " is from Antony and Cleopatra: Act II, Scene 2. The second "Yea, all which it shall inherit ..." is from The Tempest, Act IV, Scene 1.
During Don Birnam's flashback to the opera, the piece that is being sung on stage is the "Drinking Song" from La Traviata.
"The Screen Guild Theater" broadcast a 30 minute radio adaptation of the movie on January 7, 1946 with Ray Milland, Jane Wyman and Frank Faylen reprising their film roles.
Paramount were very nervous about releasing a film with such an adult theme and very nearly buried it when it didn't do too well with preview audiences. Ultimately, of course, it went on to become a major hit and Academy Award winner.
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