The Lost Weekend on DVD

Star Review

The Lost Weekend may not have been the first movie to look at the effects of alcohol addiction, but it remains one of the most devastating. For the most part, it is quite strikingly bleak; those familiar with Wilder only from his character comedies will find something of a shocking departure from the sassy sophistication of Some Like It Hot or The Apartment. But there is a familiar urbanity here too – the downbeat ‘hero’, Don Birman (Ray Milland), a failed writer turned inveterate boozer, is not only hobbled by his own addiction, but also by an increasingly oppressive Manhattan. And there are characteristic flashes of Wilder’s dark humour, not least when Birman sharply identifies with a scene from a stage production of La Traviata.

Where The Lost Weekend differs from Wilder’s later work is in its visualisation of the distortion of Birman’s booze-riddled life. The expressionist final scenes, with Birman gripped by hallucinations and the DTs, are still harrowing today. But such flourishes do not threaten to overtake the film’s raison d’etre – that is, as a convincing portrayal of an all-too-common disease.

The Lost Weekend’s true revelation, however, is Ray Milland. Prior to this, the actor had been fairly invisible – tall, dark, handsome, and routinely cast in matinee idol roles against more charismatic actresses. As Birman, however, he gives an agonising scream of a performance, one that ricochets back and forth from snappy and salacious to mercurial and dynamic. Without a drink, he is irritable; when he lays his hands on the first one, he is endearing and triumphant. But his self-respect has vanished, and he stoops to pathetically lower and lower levels of self-humiliation during the 48-hour period of the title. It is Milland’s Oscar-winning turn that brings sympathy and sincerity to The Lost Weekend. How it must have jolted post-war America back to the harsh realities of everyday life.

Julian Upton on 26th January 2005

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