Days of Wine and Roses

Rating:
Summary: Hard lessons, but lessons well learned.
Review: "Days of Wine and Roses" might be one of the least pleasant movies you will ever watch. But one of the main reasons to watch this wonderful film is the great interaction between Boston natives Jack Lemmon and the late Lee Remick. Lemmon plays busy-body Joe Clay, a very agreeable man who ends acquiring a decidedly UNagreeable habit while pressing flesh with business peers--alcoholism. Joe finds time to court pretty Kirsten (Remick), and she finds herself trying to keep up with Joe and his crazy nightlife. In the span of a couple of months, Kirsten is herself caught in a maze of booze and sleepless nights.

Soon, the happy couple are both victimized by their addiction to drink, but are slow to realize it. Slowly, painfully, each scene of their lives is shown to revolve around the bottle; even their time alone is marred by a bottle of champagne.

Joe is the first to hit rock bottom. He finds assistance and solace by a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (Jack Klugman). Joe sets his sites on getting his wife free of the disease, but finds it will not be easy.

The scenes of Joe going through his final binge are scary indeed. The second half of the film is quite different from the first in mood. It is not pretty to watch such self-destruction, and director Blake Edwards (known for producing much lighter, screwier fare in the late 70's and early 80's) makes his audience feel the pain deeply; he succeeds to the point that we, the audience, can sense some urgency in Edwards' emphasis.

There is a tendency for too much preachiness in a story of this magnitude. However, Edwards does a good job in maintaining the plot line, letting IT tell the story. Klugman is a great supporting actor in this film. It's his performance in the second half that gives this film a better than average rating, as the voice of conscience to Joe Clay, setting the stage for the final, inevitable reality.

Rating:
Summary: Hard lessons, but lessons well learned.
Review: "Days of Wine and Roses" might be one of the least pleasant movies you will ever watch. But one of the main reasons to watch this wonderful film is the great interaction between Boston natives Jack Lemmon and the late Lee Remick. Lemmon plays busy-body Joe Clay, a very agreeable man who ends acquiring a decidedly UNagreeable habit while pressing flesh with business peers--alcoholism. Joe finds time to court pretty Kirsten (Remick), and she finds herself trying to keep up with Joe and his crazy nightlife. In the span of a couple of months, Kirsten is herself caught in a maze of booze and sleepless nights.

Soon, the happy couple are both victimized by their addiction to drink, but are slow to realize it. Slowly, painfully, each scene of their lives is shown to revolve around the bottle; even their time alone is marred by a bottle of champagne.

Joe is the first to hit rock bottom. He finds assistance and solace by a member of Alcoholics Anonymous (Jack Klugman). Joe sets his sites on getting his wife free of the disease, but finds it will not be easy.

The scenes of Joe going through his final binge are scary indeed. The second half of the film is quite different from the first in mood. It is not pretty to watch such self-destruction, and director Blake Edwards (known for producing much lighter, screwier fare in the late 70's and early 80's) makes his audience feel the pain deeply; he succeeds to the point that we, the audience, can sense some urgency in Edwards' emphasis.

There is a tendency for too much preachiness in a story of this magnitude. However, Edwards does a good job in maintaining the plot line, letting IT tell the story. Klugman is a great supporting actor in this film. It's his performance in the second half that gives this film a better than average rating, as the voice of conscience to Joe Clay, setting the stage for the final, inevitable reality.

Rating:
Summary: HEARTBREAKING
Review: "Days of Wine and Roses" ranks right up there with "Lost Weekend," "Leaving Las Vegas" and "I'll Cry Tomorrow" as the most powerful cinematic portrayals of the destructiveness of alcoholism. Jack Lemmon gives one of his most honest and powerful performances as a man who lures his young bride into a life of alcohol induced pleasure and, ultimately, pain and suffering. Lee Remick is equally marvelous as his helpless wife who's own addiction proves more overwhelming than her husbands. A very personal and intimate film that will prove most unsettling to anyone who's known, first hand, the horrors brought on by alcohol abuse. Fantastic but, be warned, very depressing.

Rating:
Summary: A Haunting Depiction of a Mariage on the Rocks
Review: "They are not long, the days of wine and roses. Out of a mysic dream, our path emerges for awhile--then encloses within a dream . . ."No movie had ever gotten to my sensitive side like E.T. did when I was a kid. Then I saw this film which remains my number one favorite movie of all time. The tragic story stayed on my mind for days, as well as the characters, and the haunting title song. It got me a tad bit melancholic just to watch a normal couple's harrowing plunge into the dependency of alcohol. Jack Lemmon is also my favorite actor, because of his horrendous yet honest and poignant portrayal of a man who virtually loses everything to the bottle. The scene in the greenhouse is especially dramatic.

Rating:
Summary: Lemmon in his best portrait !
Review: 1962 was the most difficult year for awarding the Best Actor in all the Academy story . Consider Gregory Peck for To kill a mockingbird (who won with this role) , Peter O'Toole for Lawrence and Jack Lemmon for Days of wine and roses .
To me Peter O'Toole deserved this prize by far but Lemmon even his role was more introspective, tragic and harsh , made the best role of his career playing an alcoholic husband role . Lee Remick was fantastic too , but the sinister moments you watch to Lemmon for instance in the sequence of the garden in the middle of the rain night is simply outstanding .
The script is a perfect circle without any hole . A merciless story which typified many couples in the world .
A classic and bitter film!

Rating:
Summary: Skip the DVD version
Review: A classic, no doubt about it. But if you're buying the DVD version for anything but the widescreen effect, forget it. The "extras" consist of two versions of a self-congratulatory trailer (Jack Lemmon breaking character to expound on what a bold movie they'd made.) Meanwhile, the much-touted "interview" with Lemmon is a corny promotional device apparently aimed at local TV stations, with the actor, seen talking on the phone, rattling off answers to trite pre-scripted questions, giving the impression that he was actually having a phone interview with local TV personalities whose own images were later edited into the split-screen featurette.And the less said about director Blake Edwards' "commentary", the better.After explaining that he's not much good "at this kind of thing," Edwards proceeds to prove it in spades by confessing he hasn't seen the movie in 40 years, professing to be surprised when he realizes (10 minutes in!) that the film wasn't shot in color, then actually wonders aloud how audiences will be able to understand the plot if he keeps talking throughout the movie. Sad!

Rating:
Summary: I Liked This Movie and I'm Going to Buy it!
Review: After many years, the memory of this movie kept haunting me until I asked around and found out what its name was (I'd long long ago forgotten.) and rented it again. It has some shocking scenes of someone screwing up big time because of booze. I think a couple of those scenes were so nightmarish and rang so true that they stayed in my mind for many years. Great entertainment, too.

It's been a while now and I'm looking forward to getting my copy and seeing it again.

Rating:
Summary: A Good all too True to Life Tale
Review: DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is basically a story of two genuinely good people who fall in love and into the abyss of alcoholism. One escapes and the other can not. This film is a sad but realistically true statement on the pitfalls of alcoholism and addiction in general. Parents and children of those addicted are the victims as well. Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick and Jack Klugman all give excellent performances. However, Charles Bickford gives the most vivid performance as Remick's father. He remains cold and detached to her addiction until he breaks down and the audience breaks down with him. The film's ending of Jack Lemmon peering through the window is a devastating statement on the effects and the reality that once you enter the world of alcohol you may never return. This is an unusually sensitive treatment than we are used to from Director Blake Edwards. Thanks to J.P. Miller's script, an exceptional cast, Philip H. Lathrop's cinematography and Henry Mancini's score Edward's constructed a very important film yet one hard to watch.

Rating:
Summary: Alcoholism seen from a right view.
Review: Hollywood has flubbed it over the years, but this movie hits this topic square on the head. Featuring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick in one of their earlier roles, this a powerfully told tale of the rise and sure fall of a couple who fall in love with one another and then make another marriage with alcohol. The symptoms are all there, as are all the excuses. Jack Klugman has a minor role as the friend who wants to get Lemmon into an AA meeting (back when this was just starting to become accepted.) There are the typical signs of trying to stop drinking, and then the baby arrives, and then the sneaking of the drinks, and everything that goes into the rapid fall into oblivious and depression.

Yes, this is a relatively depressing movie, but its ending only offers a mere hope that Lemmon, who has finally rejected his wife for his own sobriety,...he might make it if he continues to discipline his mind and continue with his program.

It is a sad film but one which is incredibly relevant. I would've liked it if Remick had stuck it out and made a go of the marriage, but she wanted the threesome - herself, her husband and the bottle. Maybe the baby, but her baby was the bottle. Highly recommended, and again a film which could be considered family fare, as there was no profanity, sex, or violence, but an incredibly powerful message. A message in a bottle, as they say, but still as provocative as it was when it was first made. A Great Film!!!

Rating:
Summary: I dare you
Review: I dare you to watch this excellent study of a young couple's descent into alcoholism without (a) dropping your jaw during Lemmon's justly celebrated greenhouse scene and (b) crying during the finale (Remick: "I can't. . . I can't.").

It's curious that, as good a director of comedy as Blake Edwards is, for my money his two most memorable films were dark -- this one and the terrifying "Experiment in Terror" (also with Lee Remick)? But see for yourself.

(My one quibble -- the film finally doesn't really appear to be about anything but alcoholism itself. This is made most clear by the presence of Klugman's character, who is sympathetic but one-dimensional and pretty much existing solely to put across the story's message. We know nothing about him except the platitudes he speaks in.)