days of wine & roses

The sad story of Days of Wine and Roses was an interesting choice for director Blake Edwards and actor Jack Lemmon, who were primarily known for slapstick. The film is based upon a successful 1958 Playhouse 90 television production. Set in San Francisco, it tells the story of a public relations man, Joe Clay (Lemmon), who falls in love with a secretary, Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick). The courtship isn't smooth sailing: Arnesen is fairly independent-minded and her father is suspect of Clay and his profession. Clay, a heavy drinker, mostly due to having to spearhead many drunken parties for his firm's clients, introduces Kristen to alcohol. After having a daughter, Kristen slowly becomes an alcoholic, at one point, accidentally burning down their apartment with a cigarette match. Clay loses his job and the two move in with Kristen's father. The couple attempt sobriety but the spiral continues downward. Clay is committed to a sanitarium and attends Alcohol Anonymous meetings and eventually achieves sobriety. Kristen on the other hand, is hopeless, choosing addiction to sobriety.

Thanks to Lemmon's active performance (he always is such a lovable guy, even when he's difficult) and under the sensitive direction of Edwards, Days of Wine and Roses is still a good watch today. Remick is also good as the sad Kirsten. Since 1962, films have become more sophisticated with portraying addiction and alcoholism--there's a lot of dramatic bottle swigging on display here--but the rawness and sensitivity of the film is undeniable. The lovely score by Henry Mancini which primarily uses variations of the Oscar-winning title song backs the breakdown of Clay and Kirsten's love affair effectively. Appropriate to the storyline, Mancini's melody rises and then falls, twice, and then resolves itself once it rises again.


-Jeffery Berg


The title is from the Ernest Dowson poem "Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam" from 1896 which is read by Remick in the film.

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,

Love and desire and hate;

I think they have no portion in us after

We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes

Within a dream.

all fall down

A gorgeous Warren Beatty (in his third film role) makes an impact as the angsty drifter Berry-Berry in John Frankenheimer's 1962 melodrama All Fall Down. Even though Berry-Berry lives far away in Florida--working odd jobs and abusing women--his younger brother Clinton (Brandon DeWilde), eccentric, alcoholic father (Karl Malden) and overbearing mother (Angela Lansbury) idolize him with a myth-like status. Berry-Berry's name suggests a chronic disease and indeed he poisons everyone around him. Once he comes back home, he quickly falls hard for the widowed and damaged Echo O'Brien (Eva Marie Saint) whom Clinton also lusts after.

John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) and cinematographer Lionel Lindon (Academy Award winner for Around the World in Eighty Days) inject a lot of unique visual flair into a film that sometimes feels stagy. It's well-cast. Besides being populated with unique bit players, all of the principals shine. Lansbury overplays things a dash and disappears into her role. Malden is well-suited as the kooky (and Communist) father. Eva Marie Saint is lovely and sufficiently tragic. And the too-beautiful Beatty is both charming and callously offensive. But the heart of the picture is Brandon De Wilde. What a terrific, handsome young actor (also so wonderful in Hud) who tragically died too young. He pretty much outplays the pros as the isolated, adoring high school dropout who habitually writes down all the conversations around him and eventually grows up. Picnic playwright William Inge's script (based on a James Leo Herlihy novel) is a little too quirky and melodramatic and things don't really pan out in a dramatic or satisfying finish. But the film is still well-acted and nice to look at.

-Jeffery Berg