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Ray Milland: Lost Weekend
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The decision to use Ray Milland as the star was bold, since the role was an abrupt departure from his image. The cultured Welshman (real name, Reginald Truscott-Jones) had made his Hollywood mark as a smooth, dapper leading man in light comedies, of which Wilder's The Major and the Minor (1942) was typical. Having worked with Milland, Wilder and Brackett knew that he was more capable than his previous pictures might have led people to believe, and they ... realized that in casting Milland as a pitiful alcoholic they were increasing the film's impact. Paramount was not in favor of making the film and hesitant to release it. To their surprise, it turned into a money maker. The Lost Weekend is not a pleasant picture, but it is totally fascinating in telling the story of a man's addiction to the bottle. Don Birnam (Milland) is a man of good background and a writer.
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Ray Milland made his directorial debut with the Republic western A Man Alone. Milland ... starred in the film, playing fugitive gunslinger Wes Steele. While escaping a lynch mob, Steele stumbles onto an Arizona ranch that has been quarantined due to Yellow Fever. During his enforced stay, he falls in love with sheriff's daughter Nadine Corrigan (Mary Murphy), who is as much a "lost soul" as Steele. The only hope the lovers have for a happy future is Steele's exoneration, but this won't happen so long as crooked town banker Stanley (Raymond Burr) holds all the cards. A Man Alone did well enough to encourage future directorial efforts by Ray Milland, which included the well-paced espionager Lisbon and the above average sci-fi exercise Panic in the Year Zero!
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Ray Milland had made over 60 feature films by the time he won an Oscar for his role as an alcoholic in Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend. The surprise shown by the critical establishment at Milland's proficiency in the role suggests that nothing much had ever been expected of him. It is now clear... that The Lost Weekend simply reveals a more obvious aspect of Milland's style; he had already built an impressive body of work and was to go on to deliver performances of increasing depth, vitality, variety, and originality.
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The pinnacle of Milland's career and acknowledgement of his serious dramatic abilities came in 1946 when he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of an alcoholic in Billy Wilder's film The Lost Weekend (1945). In 1951 he gave a heart-breaking performance in Close to my Heart starring opposite Gene Tierney as a couple trying to adopt a child; the film was ahead of its time in dealing with the "nature vs. nurture" debate, it opened a conversation about the adoption process. In 1954 he starred opposite Grace Kelly in Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder. However, Milland failed to match his success in later years. He concentrated on directing for TV and film in the 1960s, in which he achieved much success. He returned as a movie character actor in the late 60s and the 70s, notably in the cult classic Daughter of The Mind (1969), in which he was reunited with Gene Tierney, and in Love Story (1970).
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In Cecil B. DeMille’s colorful tale of lust and lost ships, Reap The Wild Wind (1942), Ray had to don a full deep-sea diving outfit for his fight with a giant squid in the Big Tank at Paramount. The squid, made by prop men at a cost of $2000, had mechanical insides that were operated by electric motors. It could reach out and encircle a man with its eight and twelve-foot tentacles. The night before the scene was to be filmed, Milland had to attend a party where they served only champagne. Not only was he hung over for the morning shoot, but he got thirsty, and the water he drank immediately re-activated the effects of the champagne from the night before!
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In this article, the author comments on the motion picture "The Lost Weekend," produced by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett and starring Ray Milland and Frank Faylen. Faylen's performance as a male nurse is fully as right and powerful, so is a shrieking free-for-all in an alcoholic ward, which is fought by an incredibly mistaken use of background music. Actor Ray Milland's performance as the alcoholic Don Birnam is debatable at first, but so absorbed and persuasive as the picture moves along that he all but wins the picture and the doubters over.
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Lost Weekend