# The Lost Weekend-Reefer Madness of alcohol movies won an Oscar? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 29, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179 "2013-06-29T02:37:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/1 "2013-06-29T02:37:22Z")
I watched The Lost Weekend today. I"m trying to watch every single Best Picture winner. I thought this film was the 1940’s equivalent of Reefer Madness. Certainly not a film worthy of an Oscar nomination, much less a win. This movie must have been a propaganda piece for AA. Don Birnam goes on a binge, which of course must include robbing at gunpoint, DT’s, stealing from people at a bar, stealing from the housekeeper, and thoughts of suicide. The musical use of the theremin in the soundtrack was the only interesting part of this movie. The acting was wooden at best, Jane Wyman phoned it in as the so called love interest. Of course, we have the happy ending where Don the writer takes over Don the drunk and begins to write the great American novel. 1945 certainly produced better movies than The Lost Weekend. [1945 in film](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_in_film) I’ll suggest Spellbound as a better Oscar winner for Best Picture. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/2 "2013-06-29T03:29:56Z")
_Reefer Madness_ was pure propaganda, fear-mongering, and with obvious Z-level production values. _Lost Weekend_ is overwrought but nowhere in the same league. Some of the acting is decent, some dated. Billy Wilder has good dialogue but the interior monologue stuff is where things get ham-fisted. Ray Milland won an Oscar for playing against type since he was mostly known for romantic comedy leads, and while the efforts across the board are sincere, it plays as hokey now but didn’t then (as opposed to _Reefer_, which nobody ever took seriously). There were many many drunks in the movies up until then, but alcoholism was rarely ever addressed outright (except in terms of Temperance League, Prohibition morality), so this was new, “serious cinema”. Lofty, idealistic, but pretty simple-minded in retrospect. Honestly, though, _Spellbound_ is almost as bad in how it handles psychiatry. Other than the Dali dream sequence and a score my Miklos Rozsa (who also did _Weekend_), the film is a clunker. My Best Picture vote goes to Fritz Lang’s brilliant (non-nominated) _Scarlet Street_. Jean Renoir’s _The Southerner_ (which got a Director but not a Pic nod), John Ford’s _They Were Expendable_, and Elia Kazan’s _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ would also be deserving, and among the actual nominees that year, _Mildred Pierce_. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2013, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/3 "2013-06-29T04:03:54Z")
As I mentioned this earlier this year in a thread on dated movies, **The Lost Weekend** is a product of its time. Like MovieMogul said in his post, it was one of the first American films to deal with alcoholism as a disease and not in a judgmental fashion that tried to blame everything on the drinker’s weak character. Also, it was one of the first in a series of “message” pictures of the late 1940s and 50s that tried to tackle such controversial issues as racism, anti-Semitism, drug abuse, mental illness, and teenage delinquency. Most of these movies might’ve been relevant when they were released but now come across as compromised, clichéd, preachy, and heavy-handed. That’s probably the main reason why \*\*The Lost Weekend’s \*\*reputation has suffered over the long-term. As for me, I think it’s not a bad movie but I wouldn’t put in among Billy Wilder’s top five films. ---
**Author:** ![seal\_cleaner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@seal\_cleaner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/seal_cleaner)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/4 "2013-06-30T01:57:34Z")
Days of Wine and Roses is better. ---
**Author:** ![DonLogan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@DonLogan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonLogan)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/5 "2013-06-30T10:54:02Z")
The Lost Weekend was based on a novel that came out in 1944 which was somewhat of a critical sensation, so I’m sure that helped with the momentum. [Vanity Fair article about the author and the film (no happy ending in the novel).](http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/03/charles-jackson-lost-weekend-billy-wilder) ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/6 "2013-06-30T11:19:06Z")
The Lost Weekend was about an affliction that could be suffered by the Only People Who Mattered at the time, affluent middle-aged men. Of course any movie that pulled out all the hankies and gave it the full sob sister treatment would be Oscar material. Reefer Madness was about a drug used by Negroes and poor men, not just poor, but musicians! It was fit only for the hysterical rantings that Reefer Madness is the equivalent of. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/7 "2013-06-30T11:55:34Z")
I didn’t think “The Lost Weekend” was bad at all. Nor was it too overwrought. I’ve lived with an alcoholic, and also with potheads. “The Lost Weekend” hit close to home. “Reefer Madness” was just ridiculous. That said, Best Picture of the Year…? > [@MovieMogul](#): > > My Best Picture vote goes to Fritz Lang’s brilliant (non-nominated) _Scarlet Street_. Jean Renoir’s _The Southerner_ (which got a Director but not a Pic nod), John Ford’s _They Were Expendable_, and Elia Kazan’s _A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ would also be deserving, and among the actual nominees that year, _Mildred Pierce_. Haven’t seen the Ford or Kazan movies, but “Scarlet Street” and “Mildred Pierce” were great and either would have gotten my vote over “Lost Weekend.” “The Southerner” I didn’t care for. ---
**Author:** ![Myrnalene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Myrnalene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrnalene)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2013, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/8 "2013-06-30T23:18:14Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > I didn’t think “The Lost Weekend” was bad at all. Nor was it too overwrought. I’ve lived with an alcoholic, and also with potheads. “The Lost Weekend” hit close to home. “Reefer Madness” was just ridiculous. Uh, this. Nothing that happens to Don is really all that outrageous. He steals and lies. He has the DTs. He falls. He ends up at the Bellevue Alcoholic Ward, which was (or is?) a real place. These are all things that have happened to actual alcoholics. On the other hand, I am unaware of anyone being driven insane by marijuana use and diving out of a window as a result. Of course the story is told in dramatic fashion and it all happens in the space of one weekend, but it’s clear that this is someone who has been a severe alcoholic for years and things have reached a boiling point. There’s no indication that taking one drink will set you on the road to ruin, unlike the characters in Reefer Madness whose lives start to fall apart after one joint. The acting is wooden? Eh, I’m not fond of either Jane Wyman or the guy who plays the brother, but there’s no universe in which Ray Milland’s work here could be considered “wooden”. I’ve heard the ending criticized as overly optimistic before, but I never go away from it thinking that Don is magically cured. He’s chosen not to kill himself that day, or to drink for that morning. He _starts_ his novel - we don’t actually know if he’ll succeed. We know he’s tried to quit drinking before. He’s giving it another shot, and good luck to him. ETA: Also, if it’s a propaganda piece for AA, it’s a very bad one - considering it never mentions or even alludes to AA at all. ---
**Author:** ![Albert\_Rose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Albert\_Rose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Albert_Rose)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/9 "2013-07-01T00:46:48Z")
Danny Peary, in his book **Alternate Oscars** (Delta, 1993), agrees with **Movie Mogul** on _Scarlet Street, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn_ and _They Were Expendable_, and wouldn’t have even nominated _Weekend_. In his review, he says that _Weekend_ is “a strong, well-made picture…but Milland’s writer is so unpleasant…that it’s hard to care about him.” (page 79). He liked _Expendable_ as the best picture, and Boris Karloff in _The Body Snatcher_ as the best actor. I didn’t much care for _Lost Weekend_, and think of _The Southerner_ and especially _Scarlet Street_ as better movies. I even like _Bells of St. Mary’s_ better. ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/10 "2013-07-01T00:56:04Z")
> [@seal\_cleaner](#): > > Days of Wine and Roses is better. Although I haven’t seen _The Lost Weekend_ I was going to mention _Wine and Roses_. It’s nearly a generation latter, Hollywood-era wise (1962) and it still holds up today as a realistic tragedy/cautionary tale without falling into ‘scared straight’ propaganda… ---
**Author:** ![Myrnalene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Myrnalene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrnalene)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2013, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-lost-weekend-reefer-madness-of-alcohol-movies-won-an-oscar/662179/11 "2013-07-01T01:00:21Z")
> [@Albert\_Rose](#): > > He liked _Expendable_ as the best picture, and Boris Karloff in _The Body Snatcher_ as the best actor. I think Milland is good but I can’t argue with Peary’s choice for best actor. Karloff is amazing in TBS. /hijack