One's too many and a hundred's not enough! But no matter what Nat the barkeep tells Don (his retort, I'm not a drinker, I'm a drunk!), Don's "lost weekend" will take him on a downward spiral into alcohol-induced psychosis and self-loathing to the brink of suicide. The Lost Weekend (1945), directed by Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard, 1950; The Seven Year Itch, 1955; Some Like It Hot, 1959; The Apartment, 1960) and based on a Charles R. Jackson novel (of the same name), delves into the insanity of alcohol abuse with an early noir style and also stars Jane Wyman and Doris Dowling (pictured below). The script is entertaining—fast and punchy—with less of the melodrama typical in the dialogue of films of the time (scroll down for choice bits). There's also a must-watch, classic noir-surreal scene (delirium is a disease of the night) showing a bloody dispute between a mouse and a bat. (That stuff about pink elephants, that's the bunk. It's little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys that come through the keyholes!)
Don reflects on his madness...
DON
Only my mind wasn't on the suitcase,
and it wasn't on the weekend. It
wasn't on the shirts I was putting
in, either. My mind was hanging
outside the window. It was suspended
about eighteen inches below the
sill... And out there in that great
big concrete jungle, I wonder how
many others there are like me. Poor
bedeviled guys, on fire with thirst.
Such comical figures to the rest of
the world, as they stagger blindly
towards another binge, another bender,
another spree...
Earlier on, when Don chats with Nat in the tavern...
DON
Come on, Nat. One little jigger of
dreams.
NAT
Nope.
DON
You don't approve of drinking?
NAT
Not the way you drink.
DON
It shrinks my liver, doesn't it,
Nat? It pickles my kidneys. Yes. But
what does it do to my mind? It tosses
the sandbags overboard so the balloon
can soar. Suddenly I'm above the
ordinary. I'm competent, supremely
competent. I'm walking a tightrope
over Niagara Falls. I'm one of the
great ones. I'm Michelangelo molding
the beard of Moses. I'm Van Gogh,
painting pure sunlight. I'm Horowitz
playing the Emperor Concerto. I'm
John Barrymore before the movies got
him by the throat. I'm a holdup man—
I'm Jesse James and his two brothers,
all three of them. I'm W. Shakespeare.
And out there it's not Third Avenue
any longer. It's the Nile. The Nile,
Nat, and down it moves the barge of
Cleopatra. Listen: Purple the sails,
and so perfumed that The winds were
love-sick with them; the oars were
silver, Which to the tune of flutes
kept stroke, and made the water which
they beat to follow faster, as amorous
of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description.
Near the end, with Helen...
HELEN
There must be a reason why you drink.
The right doctor can find it.
DON
I'm way ahead of the right doctor. I
know the reason. The reason is me.
What I am. Or, rather, what I'm not.
HELEN
What aren't you that you want to be,
Don?
DON
A writer. Silly, isn't it? You see,
in college I passed for a genius.
They couldn't get out the college
magazine without one of my stories.
Boy, was I hot. Hemingway stuff. I
reached my peak when I was nineteen.
Sold a piece to the Atlantic Monthly.
It was reprinted in the Readers'
Digest. Who wants to stay in college
when he's Hemingway? My mother bought
me a brand new typewriter, and I
moved right in on New York. Well,
the first thing I wrote, that didn't
quite come off. And the second I
dropped. The public wasn't ready for
that one. I started a third, a fourth,
only about then somebody began to
look over my shoulder and whisper,
in a thin, clear voice like the E-
string on a violin. Don Birnam, he'd
whisper, it's not good enough. Not
that way. How about a couple of drinks
just to put it on its feet? So I had
a couple. Oh, that was a great idea.
That made all the difference. Suddenly
I could see the whole thing—the
tragic sweep of the great novel,
beautifully proportioned. But before
I could really grab it and throw it
down on paper, the drink would wear
off and everything be gone like a
mirage. Then there was despair, and
a drink to counterbalance despair,
and one to counterbalance the
counterbalance. I'd be sitting in
front of that typewriter, trying to
squeeze out a page that was halfway
decent, and that guy would pop up
again.
HELEN
What guy? Who are you talking about?
DON
The other Don Birnam. There are two
of us, you know: Don the drunk and
Don the writer. And the drunk will
say to the writer, Come on, you idiot.
Let's get some good out of that
portable. Let's hock it. We'll take
it to that pawn shop over on Third
Avenue. Always good for ten dollars,
for another drink, another binge,
another bender, another spree.
