Oh, Billy Wilder. I wasn’t quite aware that he had done a film noir, I think? I’ve seen all his 50s/60s comedies…
This movie won all the Oscars, and confirms most of my prejudices against those movies. It’s about a tedious alcoholic doing tedious alcoholic things, but very dramatically.
So much drama.
It’s not that Ray Milland is bad at being a drug fiend, shooting up marijuana into his eyeballs, er I mean, hitting the sauce hard, but…
It’s Oscar bait in all the worst ways.
As boring as listening to a real-life drunk.
I like the guy playing the bartender.
Once The Lost Weekend was completed, it was shown to a preview audience, who laughed at what they considered Milland’s overwrought performance, and the studio actually considered shelving the film. Part of the problem was that the print shown at the preview didn’t have Miklós Rózsa’s original musical soundtrack, but instead had a temporary track containing upbeat jazz music.
I can just picture it. Yakety Sax playing while Milland is sweatily crawling on the floor looking for a bottle of booze.
That sounds like a better movie than this is.
The Lost Weekend. Billy Wilder. 1945.
Popular movies in November 1945 according to IMDB:
| Poster | Votes | Rating | Movie |
|---|---|---|---|
 | 27366 | 8.1 | Brief Encounter |
 | 26215 | 8.0 | The Lost Weekend |
 | 6174 | 7.7 | ‘I Know Where I’m Going!’ |
 | 2677 | 7.6 | Road to Utopia |
 | 10343 | 7.4 | Detour |
 | 3286 | 7.2 | Fallen Angel |
 | 1235 | 7.1 | My Name Is Julia Ross |
 | 1104 | 7.0 | The Seventh Veil |
 | 310 | 6.9 | Allotment Wives |
 | 477 | 6.8 | Danger Signal |
This blog post is part of the Decade series.