The Lost Weekend

"It shrinks my liver, doesn't it, Nat? It pickles my kidneys, yes. But what does it do to my mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar. Suddenly, I'm above the ordinary. I'm competent, supremely competent. I'm walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. I'm one of the great ones. I'm Michelangelo, molding the beard of Moses. I'm Van Gogh, painting pure sunlight. I'm Horowitz, playing the Emperor Concerto. I'm John Barrymore before the movies got him by the throat. I'm Jesse James and his two brothers — all three of 'em. I'm W. Shakespeare. And out there it's not Third Avenue any longer: it's the Nile, Nat, the Nile — and down it moves the barge of Cleopatra."

"If we let you guys go home alone, a lot of you don't go home. You just hit the nearest bar and bounce right back again. What we call the quick ricochet... This department is sort of a halfway hospital, halfway jail... Listen, I can pick an alkie with one eye shut. You're an alkie. You'll come back. They all do. [gesturing toward other patients] Him, for instance. He shows up every month — just like the gas bill. And the one there with the glasses — another repeater. This is his forty-fifth trip. A big executive in the advertising business. A lovely fellow. Been coming here since 1927 — good ol' Prohibition days. Say, you should have seen the joint then. This is nothing. Back then, we really had a turn-over. Standing-room only. Prohibition. That's what started most of these guys off. Whoopee!"

"There'll happen to be a little floor show later on around here. It might get on your nerves... Ever have the DT's?... You will, brother... After all, you're just a freshman. Wait'll you're a sophomore. That's when you start seeing the little animals. You know that stuff about pink elephants? That's the bunk. It's little animals! Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes. See that guy over there? With him it's beetles. Come the night, he sees beetles crawling all over him. Has to be dark though. It's like the doctor was just telling me: delirium is a disease of the night. Good night."

"That's my novel, Nat...I was to start writing it out in the country. Morbid stuff. Nothing for the Book-of-the-Month Club. A horror story! Confessions of a booze addict. The log book of an alcoholic...You know what I'm gonna call my novel? The Bottle. That's all, very simply, The Bottle. I've got it all here in my mind. Let me tell you the first chapter. It all starts one wet afternoon about three years ago. There was a matinee of La Traviata at the Metropolitan..."

"The Screen Dares To Open The Strange And Savage Pages Of A Shocking Best-Seller!"

"How daring can the screen dare to be? No adult man or woman can risk missing the startling frankness of The Lost Weekend."

"Ray Milland - Don Birnam"

"Jane Wyman - Helen St. James"

"Phillip Terry - Wick Birnam"

"Howard Da Silva - Nat, Bartender"

"Doris Dowling - Gloria"

"Frank Faylen - 'Bim' Nolan, Male Nurse"

"Mary Young - Mrs. Deveridge, Birnam's Landlady"

"Anita Sharp-Bolster - Mrs. Foley, Cleaning Lady"

"Lillian Fontaine - Mrs. Charles St. James"

"Lewis L. Russell - Charles St. James"