DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1962)

Bottoms Up! Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1962). Director: Blake Edwards.

"The world looks so dirty to me when I'm not drinking." -- Kirsten.

Joe Clay (Jack Lemmon) is a public relations man who likes his liquor. When he first meets Kirsten (Lee Remick), the two don't exactly hit it off, but a persistent Joe finally gets a date with her. Although Kirsten doesn't drink, or even particularly like the taste of alcohol, Joe importunes her to try a Brandy Alexander, and she discovers she likes getting tight. When the two get married and have a daughter, both discover that alcohol is playing too large a role in their lives, only Kirsten won't admit she has a problem.

Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick

Days of Wine and Roses is based on a classic and excellent television play that was presented on Playhouse 90 in 1958. J. P. Miller wrote the script for both the show and the movie, although some questionable elements were added.to "open up" the story (one imagines director Blake Edwards also had a hand in that). The casting of Jack Lemmon [How to Murder Your Wife], who was mostly known as a comedian at the time, apparently necessitated sequences fabricated to let the audience slowly get into the eventually sombre mood by turning the first third of the film into a comedy as Lemmon pursues a disinterested Remick [Anatomy of a Murder]. The movie nearly sinks with an utterly ridiculous sequence in which Joe tries to get rid of the cockroaches in Kirsten's apartment, and her neighbors inexplicably complain about it.

Jack Lemmon and Charles Bickford 

The film eventually settles down into the main story, detailing how Joe loses his job due to his drinking, his recognition that both he and his wife are bonafide alcoholics, their moving in with her father, Ellis (Charles Bickford reprising his role from the TV version), who owns a nursery that Joe nearly destroys during a binge. (In both the TV and theatrical version we're not shown Ellis' reaction when he discovers what his son-in-law has done, which might have made for one intensely dramatic sequence.)

Lee Remick

Days of Wine and Roses is a good picture that is bolstered by fine performances from Lemmon (helping to establish him as a dramatic player as well as a comic one), Remick (possibly her best performance), and Bickford. Jack Klugman [12 Angry Men] is much less impressive as a representative of AA who tries to help Joe. The TV version is generally superior to the movie. In the original teleplay Joe is not responsible for Kirsten starting drinking, which he is in the film, and in the movie he never seems to feel any guilt about it. In the film Lemmon almost immediately takes a drink when Remick, in her lonely motel room, begs him to join her, whereas Cliff Robertson sits contemplating the bottle for awhile before he gives in. All in all, the teleplay is better if for no other reason than that it doesn't waste time with the sitcom-like stuff that the movie does. Both versions sort of gloss over the financial angles of the characters' situation, and other things are a bit prettified as well.

Verdict: Worthwhile picture, although not as good as the original. ***.