The Lost Weekend is a 1945 American drama film noir directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Ray Milland and Jane Wyman.
The site's critical consensus reads, "Director Billy Wilder's unflinchingly honest look at the effects of alcoholism may have had some of its impact blunted by time, but it remains a powerful and remarkably prescient film.
"[4] In 2011, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.
After finding ten dollars Wick left for the cleaning lady, Don heads for Nat's Bar, calling in at a liquor store on the way to purchase two bottles of rye.
He loses his nerve and sneaks off, after phoning Helen from a booth and making a phony excuse, ostensibly intending to actually meet her parents later.
On Sunday, Don wakes up in an alcoholics' ward, where a nurse, Bim Nolan, mocks him and other guests at "Hangover Plaza".
Bim offers to help offset his sure-to-come delirium tremens, but Don rejects the assistance and escapes while the staff are occupied with a raving, violent patient.
Suffering from delirium tremens, he hallucinates a nightmarish scene in which a bat flies in through his window and kills a mouse, spilling its blood.
Charles Brackett's first choice for playing Helen was Olivia de Havilland, but she was involved with a lawsuit that prevented her from being in any film at that time.
[8] Film critic Manny Farber in The New Republic, January 7, 1946, offered this appraisal of Frank Faylen’s performance as "Bim" Nolan in The Lost Weekend: "One episode where the directing and the acting have a fling involves a male nurse, in a provocative, sneering act—one of the only inspired movie portraits of homosexuality I have ever seen.
To further create a realistic atmosphere, Wilder and his crew used hidden cameras, placing them behind boxes or in the back of trucks, and capturing Milland as he walked up 3rd Avenue among actual pedestrians who were unaware a film was being made.
Allied Liquor Industries, a national trade organization, wrote an open letter to Paramount warning that anti-drinking groups would use the film to reinstate prohibition.
Liquor interests allegedly enlisted gangster Frank Costello to offer Paramount $5 million to buy the film's negative in order to burn it.
)[16][17][18] 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.
[19] The Registry said the film was "an uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism" and that it "melded an expressionistic film-noir style with documentary realism to immerse viewers in the harrowing experiences of an aspiring New York writer willing to do almost anything for a drink.
"[19] The Lost Weekend was adapted as a radio play on the January 7, 1946, broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater, starring Milland, Wyman, and Faylen in their original film roles.
On March 10, 1946, three days after winning the Academy Award, Milland appeared as a guest on a radio broadcast of The Jack Benny Show.
When the DT visions appeared (with Mel Blanc providing pig squeals, monkey chatters, and other animal sound effects), Ray chased them off.
Portraying the protagonist as a "five-year-old moppet who gets plastered on soft drinks," he is seen "guzzling milk shakes and cokes, weaving down Third Avenue and finally, hit by the DT's, scared witless by a Mickey Mouse.