In this bonus blog, Samantha compares the novel and the film versions of The Lost Weekend by Charles R. Jackson, the Academy Award winner for 1946.
The Lost Weekend is based on a novel written by Charles R. Jackson, an alcoholic who based the character Don Birnam on himself. It was a best-seller, a book Sinclair Lewis said was, "the only unflinching story of an alcoholic that I have ever read." As with most addicts, Jackson had several relapses in his life, and he struggled with addiction to sedative pills in addition to alcohol. He was committed to Bellevue Hospital after a suicide attempt in 1952, and he joined Alcoholics Anonymous the following year.
When Paramount announced it would make a film, AA let them know that it would be detrimental to recovering addicts around the world if they made seeing a therapist an essential component of Don's recovery. Screenwriters Charles Bracket and Billy Wilder assured them they would not. Distilleries worried the movie would promote prohibition, which it did not, though they reportedly offered the studio money not to make the film.
This is a powerful film based on an incredibly insightful novel. It won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay in 1945 and was placed on the National Film Registry in 2011.
The detail and accuracy of the film is all the more impressive when we consider when it was made, a mere ten years after the start of AA and well before alcoholism was accepted as a disease rather than a choice.
Don has a menagerie of hiding places for booze around his apartment. The film opens with his brother discovering the bottle he has dangling on a rope outside his apartment window. He hides a bottle in the light fixture, then forgets where he left it, and tears his home apart in his desperate search.
The scene in the piano bar is expertly written. The way Don sits back and observes the people around him while his thoughts flit from thing to seemingly unconnected thing really reminds me of the way the drunken brain works, the mild amusement at everything with hints of strong emotion breaking through.
"The young man wore a grey tweed suit, and expensive one, so rough and course that it looked as if small twigs were woven into it, chunks of rope and hemp, piece of coal-- he smiled with pleasure at such an idea. Isn't that exactly the kind of suit he'd be wearing? he said to himself-- and then smiled again, for of course he wouldn't have said it if the young man hadn't been wearing that kind of suit. He was delighted with this observation-- it told him that his mind was working keenly and at the top of its bent, with that hyper-consciousness that lay just this side of intoxication. Well, he'd keep this side, because he was having a good time, enjoying his own aloofness to the scene around him."
You get this sense on a smaller scale in the movie because we are on the outside looking in, whereas in the book, we are inside Don's mind. This is even more notable in the scene where he is going through withdrawal and wants to pawn his typewriter to get money for liquor on a day when all the pawn shops are closed. With each shop he passes, he becomes more desperate, and the typewriter grows heavier with each step. The music helps emphasize the scene in the movie, but it does not quite achieve the brain fog and disorientation of Don's mind as he struggles to control his body. All he cares about is his next drink at the detriment of his career and his health as he stumbles around in the sweltering heat.
He gets taken to a recovery hospital after he falls down a flight of stairs on a binge. There he meets a condescending and predatory nurse. In the book, it is more explicit that he is hitting on Don. "The nurse Bim appeared again, moving down the ward like a cat. He was even cat-like in color: tawny, neither blonde nor brunette. From a little distance he smiled at Don and raised his eyebrows, and his head waggled from side to side ever so slightly. There was something contemptuous about his every motion, a carelessness or insolence which yet solicited attention--and got it, Don realized." The interactions with the nurse make Don seem vulnerable even though internally he feels powerful when he is drinking. He only becomes desperate and weak as the effects wear off.
Don is also a movie lover. He sees that Garbo's Camille is playing at the local theater and he suddenly needs to see it, even though he has watched it before. He starts remembering scenes and dialogue. "He knew the performance by heart, as one knows a loved piece of music: every inflection, every stress and emphasis, every faultless phrase, every small revelation of satisfying but provocative beauty. There was a way to spend the afternoon!" In moments like these, Don becomes a relatable and sympathetic character despite his harmful and outrageous illogical behavior. We see his passion as a writer, but only in fleeting glimpses. The majority of his time is spent trying to achieve his next fix at the expense of everything else.
Milland is reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart in this film. They play drunk in a similar way and have an every-man quality. It makes this story more relatable and more harrowing than it would with someone loftier or sloppier. In order to research the part, Milland checked himself into Bellevue. At night, a screaming patient rattled Milland so much, he tried to escape, and the police picked him up and brought him back. He also went on a crash diet so he would look thin and haggard.
Paulette Goddard and Jennifer Jones were considered for the girlfriend part before Jane Wyman was chosen. Wyman at first resisted the directive that her character be given simple hair and makeup. Bracket said, "...she looked stunning that way-- a purity of face and gravity of beauty no one would suspect in that cutie pie girl." She is adequate, but the part doesn't require much depth. The showcase is Milland and his tortured character.
Although the film is a triumph, the book is more insular and pensive, connecting to the reader in a different way than the film connects with its audience. The movie is over in 101 minutes, and those made uncomfortable by the topic can shake it off and move along. The book holds on longer and looking away isn't an option. But the book has moments of lightness and humor that are more fleeting in the movie. It is an overall more satisfying experience to read the novel.
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