DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES: Blu-ray (Warner Bros. 1962) Warner Archive

Not since Billy Wilder and Ray Milland collaborated on the Oscar-winning, The Lost Weekend (1945) had any movie dared to broker the horrible and tenuous peace between human frailty and the disease of alcoholism, until Blake Edwards’ Days of Wine and Roses (1962). Itself, based on JP Miller’s 1958 Playhouse 90 teleplay, Days of Wine and Roses is a harrowing movie experience, not the least, for the uncharacteristic frankness in Edwards’ uncompromising directorial style (proving he could do more than romantic comedy), and the perilous and wounded byplay between co-stars, Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick in career-defining roles. He’s a PR man who enjoys more than a little nip, and, she is a teetotaler/secretary who discovers both pleasure and pitfalls at the bottom of a bottle. Their shared descend from social-drinking lovers into abject boozin’ and ballin’ addicts is as swift as it proves startling – Miller’s punishing tragedy to illuminate the voracity of addiction and its cruel ability to supplant even passion and self-respect. Lemmon gives one of his top three greatest performances ever in this movie; turning his usually congenial ‘every man’ asunder, and then, completely inside out as he staggers and suffers from nightmarish withdrawals, momentarily – at least – to consume all logic and reason. It is a toss-up, whose portrait of these ravages of alcoholism is more bittersweet and distressing, as Remick’s fall from grace is infinitely more undiluted. Even today, we are not used to seeing congenial wild flowers from the fairer sex as Remick’s Kirsten Arnesen go from lovely to lush in one fell swoop. Kirsten, a forthright, somewhat pert, but otherwise, wholly likable lass, left to her own passive addiction to chocolate, is a raging and self-destructive thing when on the sauce. Even more disturbing, she seems incapable – even unwilling to unknot the tethered noose around her addiction – even after Lemmon’s Joe Clay implores her to reconsider their lives together, and that of their young daughter, Debbie (Debbie Megowan).  

Despite opening up the picture considerably from its original teleplay, with added production values to pad out the visuals, Blake Edwards manages to keep very tight reigns on this unraveling tale of stormy lives cast adrift by compulsion. It’s still a 4-character drama; the other two parts, fleshed out by some extraordinary work from Charles Bickford – as Kirsten’s father, Ellis, and, Jack Klugman, utterly brilliant as Jim Hungerford - Joe’s 12-step program mentor. Deriving its title from English writer, Ernest Dowson’s 1896 poem ‘Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam’, also to serve as the inspiration for Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s Oscar-winning title song, Days of Wine and Roses is perhaps the definitive heavy-hitter about man’s (and woman’s) disintegration into alcoholic malaise. For in Lemmon and Remick we hear the primal screams of a collective social dissatisfaction that, despite centuries of human evolution, continues to plague humanity at large; lingering to break the tender soul, strip its confidence down to bedrock, from which the promise of reinstatement via artificial means seems quick and deceptively painless. Bickford’s deeply distraught patriarch echoes these sentiments from the helpless perspective of the bystander, even more astutely to realize, while some loves remain toxic, not even love in its purest and most unconditional form, can defeat the demon at play in a fresh bottle.  

Days of Wine and Roses opens in San Francisco, with Public Relations’ exec, Joe Clay entertaining clients at a gentleman’s social club. Clay’s latest assignment is to procure single gals for a private party on a client’s private yacht. Mistaking Kirsten, who happens to be a legitimate secretary, as just ‘one of his girls’, Clay is insulting to a fault, because Kirsten has not dressed for the part of a twenty-cent tart to illustrate her more obvious assets. But Clay has his nose tweaked by this forthright and headstrong girl, who wastes no time correcting his perceptions. The next day, Clay makes an effort to apologize at Kirsten’s place of work. But he finds her indifferent to downright hostile towards his casual gesture of boxed peanut brittle and an invitation to dinner. Reverting to his callous self, Clay again insults Kirsten – this time, for being uptight and arrogant; qualities, he utterly fails to recognize in himself. She is mildly amused and agrees to dinner. Now, Clay is intrigued. And although Kirsten insists, she is a teetotaler, whose only addiction is to chocolate bars, she almost immediately becomes hooked, after Clay introduces her to Brandy Alexanders. Confessing the drink has made her feel good, Kirsten becomes inebriated. After Clay takes her home by taxi, she insists they take a walk down to the bay instead. In one of the movie’s most ‘sobering’ scenes, Clay and Kirsten confess their darker insecurities to one another. Despite misgivings from Kirsten's father, Ellis who has etched a ‘good life’, running a small San Mateo landscaping company and botanical greenhouse, Kirsten and Clay are wed and, in time, have a daughter, Debbie. Alas, by the time of the child’s birth, the couple has already begun to ramp up their social drinking: well on their way to becoming alcoholics.

Joe’s work performance suffers and he is quietly demoted to manage a minor out-of-town account. In his daily absence, Kirsten ignores their infant daughter, watching cartoons and nursing bottle upon bottle until she quietly passes out. While on location, Clay receives word Kirsten has accidentally started a fire in their apartment that almost killed her and Debbie. Disturbed by his wife’s ‘problem’ – yet, seemingly unable to identify his own addiction, Clay is eventually terminated and forced to lump it from meaningless job to job over the next few years. Time passes. Left unattended, both begin to veer out of control. One day, Clay catches a glimpse of his own reflection, barely able to recognize his ravaged visage. Determined to quit the habit, he goes home and tells Kirsten they must stop drinking together, if not for their own health, then for the welfare of their child. Believing their addiction can be licked on sheer willpower alone, Clay moves his wife and Debbie into Ellis’ home. He takes a menial job working for his father-in-law, lugging heavy shrubs for delivery, and putting in long hours of honest and labor-intensive work in an attempt to get his mind focused on something other than booze. For a few months, the trick works. Both Clay and Kirsten sober up. Alas, the urge proves too compelling to ‘fall off the wagon’. Clay smuggles two bottles strapped to his legs into the upstairs bedroom they share – the pair getting quietly drunk after Ellis has gone to bed.

Unable to locate another bottle he has hidden somewhere in the greenhouse, Clay becomes enraged, breaking into the greenhouse on a stormy night and devastating all of Ellis’ fine work. Suffering from uncontrollable delirium tremens, Clay is committed to a nearby sanitarium. Aside: Lemmon’s shrill shrieks of sweat-soaked panic, confined in a straight jacket and wildly flailing in his padded cell, are truly unsettling. His withdrawal subsiding, Clay is taken under the wing of Alcoholics Anonymous’ dedicated sponsor, Jim Hungerford. Jim explains how Kirsten’s mild obsession with chocolate was the first sign she had the right personality, prone to addiction. As most drinkers hate to get drunk alone, Kirsten’s acquiescence to Clay’s invitation to try brandy proved the springboard to get her hooked.  Clay’s reluctance to embrace AA is eventually worn down and he confers in a following meeting hosted by Jim, he too is an alcoholic. While Clay’s efforts at newfound sobriety appear to be working, he remains powerless to convince Kirsten – either, that she has a problem, or better, to follow his lead and attend weekly meetings. Upon returning home from one of these, Clay discovers the apartment abandoned. For days, he attempts to track down Kirsten, eventually informed by the proprietor of a local motel, she has passed out in one of the rented bungalows. Affording Clay the use of his car, Jim fears the worst will happen. And, indeed, Clay – having reunited with his wife, partakes of her bender. This ends when Clay ventures to a nearby liquor store for reinforcements, is denied entry by its owner (Ken Lynch), who then cruelly pours the fresh bottle Clay was trying to steal, all over his head.

Awakening, stripped to his underwear and strapped down on a treatment table in the sanitarium, Clay is comforted by Jim who promises to remain at his side until this latest relapse subsides.  Determined never again to suffer such indignation, Clay gets sober and becomes a responsible father to Debbie. Although he is heartbroken at not being able to convince Kirsten to follow his lead, as time passes, Clay gets a steady job and is able to find a suitable apartment for he and Debbie to live.  Clay also makes amends with his father-in-law, offering Ellis a check – a start at remuneration for the damages he incurred at the greenhouse. Ellis, at first, attempts to choke Clay, accusing him for Kirsten’s alcoholism. But then, Ellis has a change of heart. Although sincerely wounded, he cannot help but recognize Clay has made good on his efforts to embrace sobriety while his own daughter has not. Ellis then confides in Clay how Kirsten continues to disappear for days on end, picking up strangers in bars.  Clay is heart sore, but determined not to allow empathy to cloud his better judgment. One night, after putting Debbie to bed, Clay is startled to find Kirsten waiting on his stoop. Barely two days sober, she sheepishly tries to broker a reconciliation. Clay is eager to have her back, but only if she agrees to quit drinking. Unable to make such a commitment, Kirsten suggests the world – without booze – looks ugly and dirty to her. After she leaves, heading towards a nearby bar, Clay calls out her name, awakening Debbie. Feigning the incident, Clay makes Debbie a promise he is, as yet, uncertain Kirsten will ever be able to keep for herself. Asked by their daughter if Kirsten will ever ‘get well’, Clay insists, “I did…didn’t I?” But even as he puts Debbie back to bed, Clay is deeply divided as to whether he and Debbie will ever see Kirsten again.

Days of Wine and Roses is an extraordinarily moving movie-going experience; almost Shakespearean in its tragedy. In an era, and indeed, from within the sixties’ generational mindset that almost exclusively subscribed, no harm could ever come from being a ‘social drinker’, the topical matter being exposed herein must have seemed downright foreign to most – if not all. Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick lay bare an ominous toxic chemistry that is cringeworthy, yet wholly believable. The devastatingly sad and far-away look caught in Remick’s eyes as Kirsten resists what may very well be her last opportunity to get healthy with her husband, is terrifically heart wrenching, as is Lemmon’s glimmer of resignation, even as he comforts Debbie with an otherwise fanciful hope for a very different outcome and future together as a family. Miller’s original Playhouse 90 teleplay had been nominated for an Emmy. But by the time of the movie, some critics felt much of its impact had been watered down by casting Lemmon in the role originally played on TV by Cliff Robertson, with Piper Laurie as Kirsten. Retrospectively, Robertson’s TV performance has far rougher edges. And, indeed, Lemmon’s trademarked status in the movies as everyone’s affable ‘every man’/leading man and comic may have been working against first impressions of him herein. However, Lemmon offers up an uncharacteristically taut and tenacious performance. Clay’s moments in the sanitarium are particularly disturbing, and counterbalanced by Lemmon’s innate and introspective ability to offer up clarity once the after-effects of strong drink have worn thin. Clay’s reconciliation with Ellis is profoundly moving; refusing to leave the greenhouse until his father-in-law accepts his sincere contrition and his check – the first installment, to pay for some – if not all – of the damages incurred.

Days of Wine and Roses in quite unlike anything Blake Edwards would ever attempt on celluloid again. Earlier this same year, he directed Remick in Experiment in Terror (1962) –another departure into a film-noir-styled crime/thriller: hardly, what was expected from this wunderkind behind such effervescent and escapist movies as Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), The Pink Panther (1963), The Party (1968), 10 (1979), and, Victor/Victoria (1980). In his own time, Edwards had his share of admirers and detractors.  The cusp of most latter criticisms of his work seems to derive from a generalized summation of Edwards as a ‘popular’ entertainer. In critical circles, it erroneously stands that one cannot be popular (aka. – mainstream) and also be considered ‘an artiste’! Rubbish, indeed, and, completely overlooking the fact Edwards, even at his most slick and frothy, always finds moments to insert valid critiques about contemporary society’s disturbing lack of permanence. Edwards would later summarize his longevity in the picture-making biz thus, “For someone who wants to practice his art in this business, all you can hope to do… is stick to your guns, make the compromises you must, and hope that somewhere along the way you acquire a few good friends who understand. And keep half a conscience.”

Days of Wine and Roses arrives on Blu-ray via the Warner Archive in another stellar B&W 1080p transfer with zero complaints. WAC has long established itself as the purveyors of quality and the results here bear out their careful attention to detail; moneys, wisely allocated to new remastering efforts applied to keep classic movies on par with current authoring standards. Gray scale tonality, contrast, black levels and film grain – all perfect. Age-related artifacts…gone. The 1.0 DTS audio, perfectly pitched to celebrate the Oscar-winning Mancini/Mercer song and score, with clean, solid dialogue. We get an audio commentary from Edwards, recorded for the 1998 DVD release, plus an original trailer. Bottom line: WAC is an exceptional repository for great movie entertainment. While other studios flounder with their ‘hit or miss’ philosophy regarding deep catalog, WAC has shown fortitude to remain the leader of the pack. Around our house, we love you guys. Our one comment, lacking such gush and coo – “more, please. And soon…I’m rapidly aging!” Bottom line: Very highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

5

EXTRAS

1