We’ve learned so much about addiction in the 75 years since this film was released. Advancements in science and behavioral psychology have changed our perceptions of what it means to be an alcoholic and drug addict … to be trapped in that solitary nightmare, to live in an alternate universe where you’re perfectly normal and charming and in control, yet everyone around you sees that you’re not. That’s what makes Ray Milland’s descent into a living Hell so disturbing, and it’s what makes The Lost Weekend such a risk for 1945. This was taboo stuff in mainstream movies of the day.

From a modern perspective, there is a camp element here, to be sure, underscored quite literally by a theremin—those electronic wailing instruments used in countless sci-fi flicks of the ’50s. It lends a certain Twilight Zone feeling to the proceedings, which is unfortunate. But this was 1945, and the first time the instrument had been featured on a film soundtrack. We can also chuckle at the archaic settings and awkward depictions—the quaintness of it all, the naive sensationalism of a crazy-eyed compulsion presented with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Still, when you realize writer-director Billy Wilder shot one scene on location in Bellevue, the psychiatric asylum in New York City, you might stop snickering long enough to understand that this is how it was, 75 years ago, for so many lost souls who fought against the dragon of addiction.

Jane Wyman (Helen) and Ray Milland (Don).

The plot doesn’t ease into it, either. From the opening scenes to later flashbacks, Don (Ray Milland) has just one thing on his mind: how he’s going to get to his next drink. That’s all he thinks about and all that matters. Everything else is a distraction or inconvenience. Forty-five minutes into the story, Don delivers a monologue in flashback while facing his girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman), explaining how and why he started drinking. For me, this is the first moment that rings true. It’s haunting in fact—the inadequacies of a budding writer who had all the potential in the world but couldn’t live up to it. Someone who got a little boost from a bottle one day to make things clearer in his head and open a world of possibilities again. Someone who watched the door close and the mirage fade each time he sobered up. Helen’s determination to help is also powerful. She sees his addiction as “the other woman” in his life, and she’s willing to stand by her man and fight hard to win him back. It’s touching and sad, but as Don explains to Nat the bartender (Howard Da Silva), “She knows she’s clutching a razor blade and won’t let go.”

Ray Milland as Don and Howard Da Silva as Nat.

When Don strikes out and hits rock bottom trying to hock his typewriter to closed doors on a national holiday, he staggers into Nat’s bar once again, begging for a drink. The hard-edged proprietor-enabler quips without a shred of sympathy, “One is too many, and a hundred’s not enough.” Again, a resounding ring of truth. Of course, Nat pours Don that one drink, then throws him out. Don ends up on the doorstep of another bar patron, Gloria (Doris Dowling). She’s angry and hurt that he broke a date with her, then she loans him money anyway. But Don doesn’t make it down the stairs of her apartment without taking a nasty tumble.

He wakes up on Sunday in Bellevue (the real Bellevue), under the watchful eye of a smarmy, effeminate, male nurse called “Bim.” Frank Faylen is a terrific character actor, recognizable from countless classics, including It’s a Wonderful Life (as Ernie the cabdriver) and Gone with the Wind. Here, he plays a stereotypical caricature, which in most circumstances would be offensive rather than effective—perhaps it’s both. Having Bim as Don’s “fairy godmother” and gatekeeper makes the nightmare complete. Bim lays it on thick with the hard facts about DTs and an unbroken cycle of addiction. He doesn’t hide how much it amuses him to watch a novice “alky” suffer, either. Perhaps this is Wilder’s attempt to sneak one additional, off-limits theme into the story, something he was forced to remove with the main character. As was the case with its author Charles R. Jackson, in the novel there are implications that Don is a closet homosexual.

The final confrontation shows us what Wilder does best—that “meta” moment where we realize we’ve been watching Don’s novel come to life. We’ve been witnesses to the outcome all along. The Lost Weekend may have debatable impact as time passes, but it still lands enough punches to work quite well. In 1945, alcoholism was rampant among soldiers returning from a war that wasn’t yet finished. It was rampant, as well, among their families at home, struggling to manage the pressure of uncertainty. The timing was perfect back then for a mainstream movie like this, with an A-list director and stars—one that stumbles on occasion from a modern perspective but doesn’t flinch from its subject for one second. In the end, I admire it for that reason, and I can see why it took the top prize.

The Lost Weekend