THE LOST WEEKEND

Belly up to the bar, boys! Ray Milland

THE LOST WEEKEND (1945). Director: Billy Wilder.

Feeling himself a failure as a writer, and living off his brother, Wick (Phillip Terry of Hold That Kiss), Don Birnam (Ray Milland) has become, in his brother's words, a "hopeless drunk" His girlfriend of three years, Helen (Jane Wyman of Johnny Belinda), refuses to give up on Don, and does her best to help him. But even when he winds up in an alcoholic ward and later gets the DT's and has scary visions, he still won't stop drinking. Will Helen be able to get through to him, to get him to let his better self come through, or is he doomed?

The Lost Weekend is based on the autobiographical novel by Charles Jackson. Although Jackson married and had children, late in life he identified as bisexual and moved in with a male lover. This aspect of his life, and the fact that self-hatred over his homosexuality added to his distress and undoubtedly contributed to his drinking, is, of course, completely unexplored in this 1940's movie. The only thing that is mildly homoerotic in the picture is an obnoxious male nurse, Bim (well-played by Frank Faylen), in the alcoholic ward. Jackson wrote other works after Lost Weekend, but none were ever as successful as his first, and, although the movie intimates that Birnam will overcome his addictions, that was, sadly, not the case in real life. In 1968 he committed suicide.

Phillip Terry, Jane Wyman, Ray Milland

Still, The Lost Weekend is a memorable film with some first-class performances. Ray Milland, who is generally excellent, won the Best Actor Oscar. (The film also won for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay [Wilder and Charles Brackett] and Best Cinematography [John F. Seitz of the silent Four Horseman of the Apocalypse].) Phillip Terry, one of Joan Crawford's cast-off husbands, had a rare opportunity in a "A" picture and delivers a solid job in probably his most memorable role. Jane Wyman is as sympathetic and adept as ever. Howard Da Silva scores as the bartender, Nat, as do Doris Dowling as the barfly Gloria and Mary Young as Birnam's landlady, Mrs. Deveridge.

An interesting aspect of the picture is that, as played by Milland, Birnam often seems arrogant about his drinking and his life, as if the world owes him a living. In a sequence when Birnam steals a woman's purse in a restaurant, he seems to smirk as if he's gotten away with something, as opposed to his being ashamed and humiliated by his actions. This suggests that Birnam has character failings that have little to do with his drinking.

Jane Wyman

The film has some notable sequences, such as when Birnam sits at a performance of La Traviata, and the opera's famous brindisi (or drinking song) sequence only reminds him of the bottle of hootch he left in his jacket at the coat check and he has to leave to get a drink. Then there's his desperate run from pawn shop to pawn shop so he can get money for his typewriter only to learn that all the shops are closed for the Jewish holiday.

As good as the film is, it now has a kind of dated aspect to it. All you have to do is look at one of the episodes of Dr. Phil where he has desperate family members bringing an alcoholic and drug-addicted person on the show for a last chance at help, to realize that a person rarely just decides to stop drinking. The film is sanitized -- what seems horrifying about the debased, pathetic lives of drunks in this film is nothing compared to the reality. As good as Milland is, he rarely looks or acts like a really hard-core drunk despite the DT's and all the rest. As noted, the photography is first-class, as is Miklos Rosza's score, although the music the composer uses to denote, so to speak, "Demon Rum," is a little over the top and sounds like something out of a science fiction movie.

Verdict: The Lost Weekend must still be remembered as probably the first movie to depict alcoholics not as comical drunks but as tormented and addicted individuals. *** 

THE PARTY CRASHERS

Bobby Driscoll

THE PARTY CRASHERS (1958). Director: Bernard Girard.

Teenager Barbara (Connie Stevens) is torn between two boys: her nice, quiet steady Josh (Bobby Driscoll) and the sexy bad boy Twig (Mark Damon of Black Sabbath). Twig enjoys crashing parties and causing trouble, and his home life sucks, as his father (Walter Brooke of Conquest of Space) is a drunk and his mother (Doris Dowling) is always going off to "the movies" dressed to the nines. Everything comes to a head when Josh grudgingly agrees to crash a party at a motel lodge because Barbara insists she'll go with someone else, probably Twig, if he doesn't take her. The teens discover that grown-ups can be just as drunk and nasty as anyone. The Party Crashers is an interesting picture with good performances from the leads, as well as Brooke and Dowling. Frances Farmer [Son of Fury] is cast as Josh's sympathetic mother and Denver Pyle as his father, and Onslow Stevens and Cathy Lewis [The Devil at 4 O'Clock] play Barbara's parents; all are effective. Even with some more character development this low-budget Paramount flick might never have been an East of Eden, but it's not as trashy and dumb as some other "Juvenile delinquent" pictures of the era. Bobby Driscoll was a former child star who won a special Oscar and died tragically at age 31. This was the last film for him and Farmer, although both did TV work afterward. Bernard Girard also directed As Young As We Are and The Mad Room.

Verdict: B movie simmers but never quite comes to a boil. **1/2.

RICHARD DIAMOND, PRIVATE DETECTIVE Season 2

David Janssen on his car phone

RICHARD DIAMOND, PRIVATE DETECTIVE Season 2. 1958.

David Janssen was back as urbane P.I. Richard Diamond for the second season out of four, consisting of 21 half-hour episodes. Diamond narrates the stories a la Mike Hammer, whose show began the same year, and even roughs up people the way Hammer does on occasion, even though he's otherwise a very different sort of fellow. Most of the episodes are a solid "B" or "B+," making the show entertaining but not outstanding. Among the more memorable episodes are: "The Dark Horse," in which a lady politician rejects the notion of a bodyguard; "Pension Plan," about a unique retirement scheme involving stolen jewelry; "Another Man's Poison," in which Rick, as everyone calls him, wonders if he was the real target when a man nearby gets shot; "Last Testament" (was the will of an electrocuted man altered?); "Percentage Takers," in which Rick protects an obnoxious Broadway star played by Jack Cassidy; "The Bungalow Murder," in which a studio head is found dead; "One Foot in the Grave" [an old cop is shot]; and "Snow Queen," in which an art store covers up a brisk trade in heroin. Guest-stars include Gordon Jones, Doris Dowling, Jay Novello, Keye Luke, Gloria Talbott, Nick Adams, Lee Van Cleef, Kipp Hamilton, and many others.

Verdict: Janssen is fine and the show quite entertaining. ***.

MIKE HAMMER Season 2 (1959)

Hammer comes across an interesting leg in his hotel room

MIKE HAMMER Season 2. 1959.

Darren McGavin was back as Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer for a second entertaining season in 1959. Hammer had always been a brash, no-nonsense tough guy, but in this season he was sometimes an outright bully and frequently obnoxious, picking on older and smaller men, and acting too much like a goon [not that this is necessarily inconsistent with the character]. He especially delights in tormenting and brutalizing a sniveling, un-threatening small-time operator and candy store proprietor (played quite well by Vito Scotti), but when this same person sells an illegal gun to a man who uses it to kill a woman Hammer is in love with, Hammer pretty much lets him get away with it and doesn't even report him to the police! Go figure. Cliffhanger serial director William Witney directed many of the second season episodes, which move briskly.

There were quite a few good episodes this season. In "I Ain't Talkin" a young man (Robert Fuller) won't name a man he saw committing a robbery and murder because that man is his brother-in-law (DeForest Kelly)."Baubles, Bangles and Blood" features murder at a carnival run by an ex-con. "Husbands are Bad Luck" starred Ann Robinson [The War of the Worlds] and Jean Willes in a tale of matrimony and blackmail. "Coney Island Baby" concerned murder in a wax museum at the amusement park with a notable Lloyd Corrigan as a lovesick older man. "Save me in San Salvador" was an amusing, change-of-pace episode in which Hammer looks for an embezzling professor in South America and discovers a spirited Nita Talbot. "Swing Low, Sweet Harriet" has Lorne Greene blackmailed by a paramour played by Merry Anders [Hypnotic Eye]. "Another Man's Poisson [sic]" has Hammer investigating if a blind man's long-lost brother is the real deal. "See No Evil," about a man falsely accused of robbery and murder, boasts a fine performance from Gene Saks [better-known as a director] and outstanding work from Walter Burke as a tormented organ grinder. Virginia Gregg [Crime in the Streets] steals the show as a nasty dilettante who takes over a small theater company in "Curtains for an Angel." "M is for Mother" stars Coleen Gray [The Vampire] as a woman whose daughter is afraid that her suitor is a little bit shady. In "Now Die in It" Barbara Turner's sister is murdered and Hammer comes to uncomfortable conclusions about who did it and why. "I Remember Sally" features Doris Dowling in another vivid performance as a woman being sought by old friend Malcolm Atterbury [High School Big Shot]. An ex-con he put away is out to get Hammer in "Merchant of Menace." A wealthy woman tries to buy off her brother's girlfriend in "Bride and Doom." The final episode, "Goodbye, Al," which illustrates Hammer's good side, and his compassionate sense of justice, deals with a lowlife gambler who is arrested for supposedly killing a waitress.

But even those, good as they were, weren't the best episodes, which include: "Groomed to Kill," in which a young man (Ray Daley) about to be married is blackmailed by a woman who smooches him at his bachelor party; "A Haze on the Lake" concerned everything from fraternity hazing to a murder plot to a troubled father and son relationship, and featured fine performances from Lorne Greene, Ray Stricklyn, and John Carlyle; and (perhaps the very best episode) "Park the Body" in which a parking garage scam leads to murder, with Robert Fuller and Helena Nash in top form.NOTE: To read about the first season and the pilot with Brian Keith as Hammer, click here.

Verdict: Great episode titles, some fine scripts, and McGavin add up to a darn good private eye series. ***.

MIKE HAMMER Season 1 (1958)

Hammer (Darren McGavin) watches a zesty cat-fight

MIKE HAMMER Season 1 (1958).

I don't know what purists might think but to me Darren McGavin (Kolchak, the Night Stalker) seems like perfect casting as Mickey Spillane's New York private eye, Mike Hammer. There were forty half-hour episodes in the first season of this show, and they rarely dipped below a "B" level in quality and some were much better. In addition to McGavin, the only other regular on the show was Bart Burns [a real-life WW2 hero] as Captain Pat Chambers, and in his low-key way he's also quite good. Among the more memorable episodes, "The Broken Frame" with Dick Van Patten asks if an executed man was really innocent; "Look at the Old Man Go" with Angie Dickinson starts out as the tale of an old father smitten with a young babe but turns out to be something a bit different; the sick family drama "My Son and Heir" with Douglas Dick, Barbara Turner and Virginia Gregg deals with the death of a rich son's girlfriend and twisted relationships; and the very suspenseful "Old Folks at Home Blues" has Hammer helping a bewildered Ruta Lee find her missing husband in the Bowery and discovering a startling plot. Other interesting guest-stars on the show, many of whom made more than one appearance, include Doris Dowling, Doris Singleton (Carolyn Appleby of I Love Lucy), Kipp Hamilton (War of the Gargantuas), Gloria Talbott, Nita Talbot, Joan Taylor, Robert Clarke, Jeanne Cooper, Grace Whitney (Star Trek), Terry Becker (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea), Barbara Bain, Yvette Vickers, Robert Vaughn, Paula Raymond, and Joan Marshall/Jean Arless of Homicidal fame. Boris Sagal directed the show adroitly and certainly kept things moving. The show could be quite violent at times, and the girl-happy Hammer could be a bully, even with witnesses, but that's one of the things that makes his tough character interesting. The show had plenty of good, well-orchestrated fist fights and at least one zesty cat-fight (between Doris Dowling and Doris Singleton) in "Lead Ache."

NOTE: Two years before this series aired, a Mike Hammer pilot was filmed with Brian Keith in the title role. Keith [who was the son of actor Robert Keith and the stepson of Peggy Entwhistle, who jumped off the Hollywood sign] did other TV series, but he didn't play Hammer, possibly because of other commitments. Keith is very good in the role, not necessarily better than McGavin, but different, and perhaps a bit gruffer. The pilot's story has Hammer pursuing a mobster after a newsboy and several other people are shot and killed outside a nightclub.

Verdict: Very entertaining crime drama with a solid lead performance. ***.