03 Apr The Lost Weekend
The Lost Weekend, WWII era movie starring Ray Milland
(1945) A struggling alcoholic writer can think of nothing except where he will get his next drink. The movie traces his stumbling steps throughout a long drunken weekend.
As I watched The Lost Weekend I wasn’t thinking of it as a World War II movie, but the TCM article convinced me otherwise. In 1945, America’s servicemen were just coming home from war. Many had their own nightmare memories and were having a hard time finding jobs, fitting in, settling down, conforming to new roles. Liquor had been an important part of military maneuvers. The shot, the cocktail, the bottle was a way of life.
The Lost Weekend was first a 1944 novel by Charles Reginald Jackson, himself an alcoholic. Initially, the subject matter was considered to be inappropriate for the screen.
Nominated for seven academy awards, The Lost Weekend won Best Picture. Ray Milland received the award for best actor, as did Billy Wilder for best director. In 2011, The Lost Weekend was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
The Lost Weekend at amazon.com
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