I'm fascinated by the New York of "The Lost Weekend". Those NYC exteriors were real: while the interiors - including Nat's Bar - were filmed at good ole Paramount, all those street scenes and city-scape vistas were real, and shot in the locations as described in the novel. It's fascinating to learn that Third Avenue in Midtown once consisted of cheap clothing stores, countless bars, and a rather shocking amount of pawn shops. (Guess the Depression wasn't too far back from 1945.) Today, of course, it's the most expensive real estate in the world. Also filmed inside the drunk ward of Bellevue, which never allowed filming inside there again.
Billy Wilder was wrong. He claimed that this was the first movie to take alcoholism seriously and not treat drunks as comic figures. Well, in 1931 alone DW Griffith did an examination of the affliction called The Struggle AND Lionel Barrymore won a Best Actor Oscar for playing a drunken lawyer in A Free Soul. (Guess all those W C Fields movies in the 30s made everyone forget!) Anyway, this study of a pathetic souse who spends the titular weekend trying desperately to sneak booze and then suffering the consequences is a terrific, wonderfully paced movie that challenged Ray Milland as he'd never been before or since. But I can't help thinking that Wilder, being Wilder, was really making a very sly, pitch-black COMEDY. There's lots of very dark humor, and the line Milland receives after carrying his typewriter for miles trying to sell it, dealing with ethnic and religious holidays, is still one of the funniest things I've ever heard!
Devastating analysis about the consequences of the vice of alcohol, maybe the most devastating ever come from Hollywood, and a masterpiece of the earlier career of Wilder. But I have to say...I am not agree with the ending. Let's analyze it: The point of view of the movie is the main character's, and it's totally destructive, hopeless. But suddenly that point of view changes, from subjective to objective, returning the story to the beginning and doing Wilder the reverse of the initial shot: instead of coming to the intimacy of Don's little world, it goes out to the city, giving a collective vision, and that vision carries some compassion and pity that, of course, don't allow the story finish with the tragic original ending that, in my opinion, could have been better...
One of the greatest films of the 1940’s
I'm fascinated by the New York of "The Lost Weekend". Those NYC exteriors were real: while the interiors - including Nat's Bar - were filmed at good ole Paramount, all those street scenes and city-scape vistas were real, and shot in the locations as described in the novel. It's fascinating to learn that Third Avenue in Midtown once consisted of cheap clothing stores, countless bars, and a rather shocking amount of pawn shops. (Guess the Depression wasn't too far back from 1945.) Today, of course, it's the most expensive real estate in the world. Also filmed inside the drunk ward of Bellevue, which never allowed filming inside there again.
SPECTACULAR. You do terrific work.
Thank you very much
This was good for one viewing. But for multiple viewings, also dealing with deep psychological issues, "Spellbound" was the one this year.
Spellbound was pretty great alright...
Billy Wilder was wrong. He claimed that this was the first movie to take alcoholism seriously and not treat drunks as comic figures. Well, in 1931 alone DW Griffith did an examination of the affliction called The Struggle AND Lionel Barrymore won a Best Actor Oscar for playing a drunken lawyer in A Free Soul. (Guess all those W C Fields movies in the 30s made everyone forget!) Anyway, this study of a pathetic souse who spends the titular weekend trying desperately to sneak booze and then suffering the consequences is a terrific, wonderfully paced movie that challenged Ray Milland as he'd never been before or since. But I can't help thinking that Wilder, being Wilder, was really making a very sly, pitch-black COMEDY. There's lots of very dark humor, and the line Milland receives after carrying his typewriter for miles trying to sell it, dealing with ethnic and religious holidays, is still one of the funniest things I've ever heard!
Devastating analysis about the consequences of the vice of alcohol, maybe the most devastating ever come from Hollywood, and a masterpiece of the earlier career of Wilder. But I have to say...I am not agree with the ending.
Let's analyze it:
The point of view of the movie is the main character's, and it's totally destructive, hopeless. But suddenly that point of view changes, from subjective to objective, returning the story to the beginning and doing Wilder the reverse of the initial shot: instead of coming to the intimacy of Don's little world, it goes out to the city, giving a collective vision, and that vision carries some compassion and pity that, of course, don't allow the story finish with the tragic original ending that, in my opinion, could have been better...
Billy Wilder is in my top 3 favorite directors of all time. Not one of his best in my opinion, but still... Wilder can do no wrong
The Lost Weekend is one of his best films