I love Billy Wilder and it pains me to write this, but here it goes: "The Lost Weekend" is, in my opinion, the worst Oscar-winning "Best Picture" I've seen, and I've seen all but about five. It is proof positive that Academy Award voters were as misguided in 1946 as they have been in the past decade with such embarrassing choices as "Gladiator," "Braveheart," and "A Beautiful Mind." "Mildred Pierce," another Oscar nominee in '46, also is dated, but it is well-written, compelling entertainment. I am sure that in 1945, "The Lost Weekend" seemed very daring and gritty. But today it just seems dated. Indeed, as I placed the DVD back in the case, I searched on the floor for mothballs that I figured fell out of the packaging in my haste to get the DVD into the player. "The Lost Weekend" is like a not-so-good high school play circa 1945. The acting is laughably overwrought. Jane Wyman's role as Helen "Oh-I-Love-Him-So" St. James needs a bottle, too: Over her noggin to pound an iota of sense into her head. And the music...?! I hate to be repetitive, but only one word springs to mind in describing Miklos Rozsa's score, and that word is "overwrought." The only two things I enjoyed about this movie was seeing the skyline and streets of Manhattan circa 1944 and hitting the "stop" button on the remote control when the credits began to roll.
Review of The Lost Weekend
