The Lost Weekend (film)
| The Lost Weekend | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Billy Wilder |
| Produced by | Charles Brackett |
| Screenplay by | Charles Brackett Billy Wilder |
| Based on |
The Lost Weekend by Charles R. Jackson |
| Starring |
Ray Milland Jane Wyman |
| Music by | Miklós Rózsa |
| Cinematography | John F. Seitz |
| Edited by | Doane Harrison |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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99 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $1.25 million |
| Box office | $11,000,000 or $4.3 million (US rentals) |
The Lost Weekend is a 1945 American film noir directed by Billy Wilder and starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman. The film was based on Charles R. Jackson's 1944 novel of the same name about an alcoholic writer. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay).
In 2011, The Lost Weekend was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Thursday - An alcoholic New York writer, Don Birnam (Ray Milland), is packing for a weekend vacation with his brother Wick (Philip Terry), who is trying to discourage his drinking. When Don’s girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman) comes to see them off, she mentions in passing that she has two tickets for a concert, to which Don urges Wick to accompany her. Don heads for Nat’s Bar, deliberately missing his train, and then sneaks back into the flat to drink some cheap whisky he has bought, avoiding Helen who is worried about him being left alone.
Friday - Back at the bar, the owner, Nat (Howard Da Silva), criticizes Don for treating Helen so badly, and Don recalls how he first met her. It was due to a mix-up of cloakroom tickets at the opera-house, where he had to wait for the person who had been given his coat-check in error. This was Helen, with whom he strikes up a romance. When he is due to meet her parents for lunch at a hotel, he loses his nerve and phones a message to her, crying off. Presently he confesses to her that he is two people ‘Don the writer’, who can only write while drunk, and ‘Don the drunk’ who always has to be bailed out by his brother. Still, Helen devotes herself to helping him in his plight. Back in the present day, Don has moved on to another bar, where he is caught stealing money from a woman's purse to pay his bill, and he is subsequently thrown out. In the flat, he finds a bottle he had stashed the previous night and drinks himself into a stupor.
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Wikipedia