Days of Wine and Roses

Rating:
Summary: Drink It Up
Review: I grew up laughing out loud, as film director Blake Edwards teamed with the likes of Peter Sellers, in the Pink Panther movies, and Dudley Moore in 10. These comedies went straight for the funny bone. The slapstick stuff was just outrageous. While I have seen the likes of some of his latter films, including SOB and Victor/Victoria, they weren't as "classic" as those I mentioned before. Up until the 2004 Oscar Ceremony, I had no idea that Edwards even did any dramatic films. The fact that The Days Of Wine And Roses starred one of my all time favorite actors, the late great Jack Lemmon, just made me want to finally see the movie all the more.

The film is a disturbing adaptation of J.P. Miller's Playhouse 90 story. Joe Clay, (Lemmon) is a San Francisco public relations man who likes to hoist a few and have a good time. When he meets secretary Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick), who doesn't drink, he is taken be her, and after a short time they marry. After a few more months, Kirsten is able to put away as much liquor as her husband. As the years pass, Joe loses one job after another and his wife neglects their child until he begins to realize that both of them are alcoholics. soon the couple moves into her father's (Charles Bickford) nursery to dry out, but following a couple of weeks "on the wagon", they go on a total drinking binge. Joe nearly destroys a greenhouse in a fanatic search for a drink and ends up in hospital ward. Former alcoholic Jim Hungerford (Jack Klugman) tries to help them both...

Edwards offers an unflinching look at alcoholism. I remember seiing The Lost Weekend (also featuring an alcoholic) in film school, and being amazed, I felt the same way after I saw this movie. Lemmon and Remick are very good together. The film avoids any cliche about the subject and can make you feel for the couple, while at the same time being repulsed by some of their behavior at the same time--not an easy task. Anyone expecting a laugh riot from the director need not apply or want to. Edwards comedies are funny--most of them anyway--it's nice to know that his was willing to tackle a tough issue.

The DVD boasts a fine audio commentary by from Edwards. He is very easy going and informative about the production. You also get to see a vintage interview with Jack Lemmon, in which, he also discusses the film. The theatrical trailer tops off the bonus material.

To those viewers, who want to see Lemmon in one of his best dramatic roles, watch this. I still can't believe it took me this long to see this movie--I'm very glad I did

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Disturbing ! ! !
Review: I was drawn to watch this film because the theme, written by Henry Mancini has since become a Jazz standard. I first heard it performed by the organist Mel Rhyne at a Jazz club in NYC, took to it right away, then went out and learned how to play it, and it has been a regular number in my book with my organ trio. - - When I found out that it actually came from a movie, it drew my curiosity, but when I found out the theme of the movie, I held off a bit.

There is no doubt this is a terribly depressing film with a sense of emotional/interpersonal realism that you almost wouldn't expect in a Hollywood film of this era - - The only film that comes close to it perhaps is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". The golden rule of Hollywood films afterall is, "And they all lived happily ever after," however, the film cuts no corners in portraying not only the disease of alcoholism, but its complex dynamics within human relationships as the characters in this film eventually transform from lovers to drinking partners who's relationship is the bottle itself. As the film progresses (without giving too much away) they will have to choose between becoming sober yet losing one another or staying drunk and in love - - both believing that perhaps they can go back to the days of wine and roses... when they were drunk... yet happy, but of course, this is a mere fantasy that the characters are forced to reckon with.

Jack Klugman plays a brilliant AA sponsor - - Lemmon's acting is powerful, convicing - - at times comedic, and at other times deeply disturbing. - - If you get it, be sure to have something funny and bright to put in the VCR afterwords... the biting realism of the film does not redeem the viewer with any cinematic devices to ensure that "good feeling" most movies try to leave us with... in the end you'll pretty much feel as sick, hung over and tormented as the characters... however, you will realize that you have just experienced one of the greatest films of its its era and genre !

Rating:
Summary: Jack Lemmon's sobering portrait of an alcoholic
Review: I was never really interested in drinking alcohol and after catching "Days of Wine and Roses" on late night television I knew I was never going to drink, never get drunk, and never end up like the character of Joe Clay, played by the late Jack Lemmon. Joe is in public relations and cannot have a good time unless he is drinking. He meets up with Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick), and informed she does not drink but loves chocolate, he orders her a Brandy Alexander. Joe and Kirsten marry, although her father Ellis Arnesen (Charles Bickford), is not sure he approves. Joe's alcoholism finally costs him his job and by then Kirsten is boozing just as much. In one of the most ghastly scenes in movie history, Joe destroys the Arnesen greenhouse, looking for the bottles of booze he has buried with one of the plants. With the help of A.A. Counselor Jim Hungerford (Jack Klugman), Joe finally starts to get his life together. But Kirsten cannot do the same, even for the sake of their daughter Debbie.

With Lemmon's death a lot of his old movies are suddenly popping up on cable television. I watched "Days of Wine and Roses" again last night and it is every bit as powerful and as horrific as I remember. No other film has made the life of an alcoholic look so hopeless, not "Leaving Last Vegas" and certainly not "Lost Weekend." Lemmon and Remick were both nominated for Oscars for their performances, while Henry Mancini's title song won the Academy Award. Charles Bickford repeated the role he originated in the "Playhouse 90" version aired in 1958, which was directed by James Frankenheimer. Blake Edwards directed this 1962 movie because the studio told Frankenheimer he could not direct a comedy like this film. Both scripts were written by J. P. Miller. Bottom line: Nobody who ever watches this movie will ever forget it.

Rating:
Summary: Choice of language in DVD's
Review: I would like to comment on Reviewer's Allen Smalling "Constant Reader," (Chicago, IL United States) - when he said and I quote "THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1962) is a wonderful film, but this DVD is burdened with an unacceptable Director's Commentary." I would like to know if this gentleman knows that there is a choice of viewing this DVD WITHOUT the director's comment? Sometimes when we put the DVD in the machine it starts in a way we do not like, for example in a foreign language or with the director's commentary. In this case you go to Language, and choose your language and puff goes the director. I give 5 stars to this movie and I pray that they use it in AA groups.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing Acting
Review: If you appreciate great acting, this is a must see. Jack Lemon in this movie demonstrates why he is one of the greatest actors of all time, if not the best. In addition to an amazing performance by Jack Lemon, the story line is excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Too Good to be Missed
Review: If you haven't seen this one, whether you love classics or not, see it anyway because it opens up your heart and mind and makes you think. Jack Lemmon is superb in his first "real" dramatic movie as Joe Clay a social drinker who works in public relations, he meets his wife (Lee Remick) and soon the couple start to drink more and more. They have a daughter but things get worse from neglect and Joe loses his job from drinking. They end up staying with her father awhile on a farm trying to get rehabilitated and they end up sneaking liquor into the bedroom but when they run out Joe goes to the greenhouse to get more he hid in one of the flower pots. Only there's hundreds of pots and he can't remember which one it is and he goes mad and tears up the greenhouse, I think this is one of Lemmon's best scenes in his career! Things get even worse when they lost custody of their daughter and he ends up in a hospital ward strapped to a bed and delirious. These scenes are heartbreaking almost as Lee REmick's condition worsens as she chugs the bottle daily. Things start to brighten for Joe, a friend gets him into AA and he gets sober and gets back his daughter. Now that he's sober he understands what he did to his wife and hopes one day they can be together but she's still so dependent on alcohol, can they get back together? I won't give too much away because it's one hell of a story that should be shown to everyone whether you like to drink or know an alcoholic or if you're sober as can be because the performances are top notch and it was nominated for five oscars! You won't forget this one.

Rating:
Summary: AWESOME
Review: Most people seem to see this movie to be about the devastating effects of alcoholism. In a TV interview years ago, Jack Lemmon stated "The Days of Wine and Roses" was a love story. Despite the tragic consequences that alcoholism brought into their lives, in the end Joe still loved Kirsten and would cling to the hope that someday they would be together again. Jack Lemmon's performance, a tightrope between comedy and drama, is the greatest acting performance I have ever seen. His and Lee Remick's performance were both nominated for Academy Awards. Henry Mancini won the award for the title song. Other movies about alcoholism, "The Lost Weekend", "Leaving Las Vegas", don't even come close, in my opinion, to the overall quality of this movie. It is AWESOME!!

Rating:
Summary: It was an execellent novel and movie.
Review: My father told me I should watch this because it was part of my families past. The Lost Weekend which was also on your list, was written by one of my past relatives in my now Second cousin's cottage in Glenora, New York. So for all I do recommend both of these wonderful stories.

Rating:
Summary: A Message For All Young People About The Dangers Of Alcohol
Review: The Days of Wine & Roses has equal impact today, as it did more than 40 years ago. It tells the story of alcoholisim as seen through the eyes of a "normal", white, middle class couple. The sickness creeps up on the viewer gradually until it's almost unbearable to watch. This is yet another fine example of the marvelous tempo all Billy Wilder movies posessed. Sunset Blvd had it in Spades. But The Days of Wine and Roses is perhaps the only Wilder movie, so completely void of humor.

Lemmon and Remmick are compelling as is the fine supporting cast. This is a great movie to covey the message about the dangers of drinking to young people. As a side note, I attended high school and was quite freindly with one J. D. Miller's sons. Unfortunatly the lessons of the story were not learned by his offspring. Then again, that was almost 40 years ago. Maybe there's a happy ending in there somewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Edwards' Recall "Laughed and Ran Away Like a Child at Play"
Review: THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES (1962) is a wonderful film, but this DVD is burdened with an unacceptable Director's Commentary. This highly successful film was everything Blake Edwards, the director, could have wanted from it; or at least it is according to the many reviews and favorable critical comments I've read over the years.

Fresh from the thunderous reception of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, Edwards wisely stuck with Henry Mancini as the movie's musical composer (and whose theme for the movie won Mancini his second Oscar in two years, following TIFFANY's). For WINE AND ROSES, Edwards took his nearly legendary, trademark style--particularly the insouciant, almost breezy charm of the JFK years as represented in TIFFANY'S--and applied it to subject matter that is anything but screwball in nature: alcoholism.

A boozy, needy P.R. guy (Jack Lemmon) "meets cute" and befriends at work a humorous and intelligent, but slightly aloof executive secretary (Lee Remick). In 1962, words like "codependency," "enabling" and "dysfunctional" were not in most Americans' vocabulary but we can see them at work here...and at first they seem glamorous because of all the charm. Lemmon's character grew up the child of itenerant entertainers, and his standards of achievement are largely superficial and visual. He grew up "Eatin' peanut butter," and wants his life to "have class," whether it's a well-stacked "doll" in a cocktail bar, a high standard of living (and drinking), or rounding up a bunch of lovelies as "entertainment" for his firm's many clients.

But after Lemmon's character meets Remick's, his values begin to change. Remick's character got her integrity and stubborn faith in self-reliance from her Norwegian-American immigrant father (played with brilliant understatement by Charles Bickford) who, as a small businessman, cannot understand why large corporations need flacks like Lemmon to tint unfortunate events with a rosy hue. Lemmon's character comes to view his P.R. procurements (correctly) as a kind of glorified pimping. To get away from that and live a "classy" life he takes a lateral move within his firm . . . but is he simply copping out of a more demanding but satisfying career? While Lemmon's life coping with alcoholism becomes a little easier--at least for a while--what happens to Remick is fatal. He gets Remick, who "can't stand the taste of alcohol," to drink with him by exploiting her favorite jones, chocolate. Her first mixed drink is a Brandy Alexander, where the brandy is largely drowned out by Creme de Cacao.

Soon, though, Remick likes her hard-stuff straight, and the film itself moves onto the hard realities of two alcoholics' lives. Things gradually get less and less charming--and more and more on-point with the realities of full-blown alcoholism, until sanity arrives in the form of an Alcholics Anonymous sponsor, played passionately by Jack Klugman. Lemmon's character accepts the then-novel AA conception of alcoholism as a type of disease, but for Remick cutting down on the drinking is "just a matter of self-respect and will power." What will happen?

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is an extraordinary film not only for its style and great acting, and the way the charming plot eases us into the nightmare of full-blown alcoholism, but also for its psychological insights. Every time I see this movie I notice something new: from the symbolism of the cockroaches that Lemmon tries to aerosol-bomb in his girlfriend's "roach palace" of an apartment (look how the middle-class neighbors react); to the fact that Lemmon, whose metaphor for a deprived and rootless upbringing is "Eatin' peanut butter," tries to charm Remick with a box of peanut brittle! (Didn't Freud say that a present says more about the giver than the recipient?)

As such, DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is an entirely different turn from the documentary-like, "hard-hitting" social-issue approach to alcoholism that started showing up in the films of the late Eisenhower period in the Fifties. Edwards himself, in the film's commentary track, remarks that in the early Sixties people were just beginning to get used to the kind of metaphors carried by the "roach palace" sequence. Unfortunately, that is one of the very few times the director's comments connect with what's going on up on the screen in any significant way.

A few minutes into the commentary track, Blake Edwards wonders aloud if maybe he shouldn't have seen his movie fresh, so that he could better structure his comments about it. I sure wish he had, because most of the rambling, unfocused remarks he makes about his movie are repetitious ("You've gotta remember I myself was an alcoholic then"), or trite ("That's the way it was back then . . . everybody drank"), or irrelevant if sympathetic ("The last time my wife [Julie Andrews] and I saw Lee [Remick] was in the hospital . . ."). We do hear a little about acting styles, particularly the way Lemmon's comically nebishy persona was harnessed to lighten up a dead-serious theme, but we hear next-to-nothing about the technical aspects of how the film was made.

So while THE DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is a great movie, not a period piece but a charming bittersweet love story about a love that becomes besotten and horrible (yet not without the possibility of redemption), I feel I must downgrade my star-count from a five to a four because of unacceptable bells-and-whistles. Simply plunking even primary talent like a director or star in front of a film and expecting instant insight is not the way to go for DVD's. Sadly, this DVD has company; it's just among the worst of a field in which Audio Commentary's relevance, usefulness and anecdotal enjoyment are very catch-as-catch-can propositions.