The Lost Weekend

The Lost Weekend, motion picture about an alcoholic writer living in New York City, based on the 1944 novel by Charles R. Jackson. Released in 1945, this Academy Award-winning film was directed by Billy Wilder and stars Ray Milland as Don Birnam. The man’s girlfriend and brother fight to keep him from going on dangerous benders, but clever Birnam stashes bottles of cheap liquor everywhere he can think of. He conspires to get time alone to himself, and soon pawns his one tool of trade, his typewriter, to buy more liquor. Birnam drinks himself into a hallucinating oblivion and ends up in a ward for manic alcoholics.

Director

• Billy Wilder

Cast

• Ray Milland (Don Birnam)
• Jane Wyman (Helen Saint James)
• Philip Terry (Nick Birnam)
• Howard da Silva (Nat the bartender)
• Doris Dowling (Gloria)
• Frank Faylen (Bim)
• Mary Young (Mrs. Deveridge)
• Anita Sharp Bolster (Mrs. Foley)
• Lilian Fontaine (Mrs. Saint James)
• Lewis L. Russell (Charles Saint James)
• Frank Orth (Opera attendant)
• Gisela Werbiseck (Mrs. Wertheim)
• Eddie Laughton (Mr. Brophy)
• Harry Barris (Piano player)
• Jayne Hazard (M. M.)
• Craig Reynolds (M. M.'s Escort)
• Walter Baldwin (Albany)
• Fred 'Snowflake' Toones (Washroom attendant)
• Clarence Muse (Washroom attendant)
• Gene Ashley (Male nurse)
• Jerry James (Male nurse)
• William Meader (Male nurse)
• Emmett Vogan (Doctor)
• Milton Wallace (Pawnbroker)
• Pat Moriarity (Irish man)
• William O'Leary (Irish man)
• Lester Sharpe (Jewish man)
• Bertram Warburgh (Jewish man)
• Theodora Lynch (Opera singer)
• John Garris (Opera singers)
• Byron Foulger (Shopkeeper)
• Helen Dickson (Mrs. Frink)
• David Clyde (Dave)

Awards

• Academy Award for Best Picture (1945): Charles Brackett—Producer
• Academy Award for Best Actor (1945): Ray Milland
• Academy Award for Best Director (1945): Billy Wilder
• Academy Award for Best Writing—Screenplay (1945): Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture—Drama (1945)
• Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actor (1945): Ray Milland
• Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Director (1945): Billy Wilder

Trivia

• Actor Milland, a non-drinker in real life, had himself committed to the Bellevue drunk ward in New York City and used the experience for some of the terrifying scenes in the film. Later, in a street scene shot by hidden cameras, Milland was recognized by two of his wife’s friends who did not know he was making a film. The next day the gossip columns reported that the actor had gone on an all night bender.
• The set for the bar favored by Don Birnam was so realistic that an actual alcoholic man would enter every day just when they “opened” and ask for a drink. Actor Howard da Silva, who played Nat the bartender, kept a bottle of real liquor on hand so he could pour the man a drink and let him leave in peace.

Quote

• Birnam: “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. I can't take quiet desperation!”