Days of wine and roses

Days of Wine and Roses (Days of Wine and Roses) is a 1962 American film directed by Blake Edwards and starring Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford and Jack Klugman as main actors. She was the winner of the Oscar for Best Song 1962 for Best Music and Best Song: Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer, for the song Days of Wine and Roses.

He also won the 1963 Golden Laurel award, in the drama categories, best dramatic actress (Lee Remick) and best dramatic actor (Jack Lemmon), the Silver Shell award from the 1963 edition of the International Film Festival of San Sebastián for Best Director (Blake Edwards), Best Actor (Jack Lemmon), and Best Actress (Lee Remick), the 1964 Sant Jordi Award for Best Performance in a Foreign Film (Jack Lemmon) and the Fotogramas de Plata Award of 1964 to the best interpreter of foreign cinema (Jack Lemmon).

Origin of the film project

The film is an adaptation of a highly successful television drama of the same name that aired in 1958 as an episode of the CBS anthology series Playhouse 90, directed by John Frankenheimer and starring Cliff Robertson, Piper Laurie and Charles Bickford as lead actors.

With a script by the same author, J.P. Miller, the film adaptation was expected to be directed by Frankenheimer; however, the producer changed the cast and replaced the director.

Synopsis

Joe Clay (Jack Lemmon) meets Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick), a brilliant secretary with whom he falls in love, and they eventually marry. They have a baby, and everything seems to be going well. But Joe drinks more and more and, what's worse, he also drags his wife, who is a teetotaler. The two become alcoholics, and in their sober moments they think about how to stop drinking.

Analysis

The film is a study in how destructive addictions can be in modern life.

This film shows a peculiarity regarding alcoholism: the latent tendency to acquire it. Joe, once in recovery, argues with his "sponsor" (a fellow AA community emotionally by his side in his arduous fight to stay sober), about the guilt he feels for driving Kirsten into alcoholism.; he feels totally responsible. In that discussion, revealing aspects emerge of the tendencies that his wife would already have to develop this disease, without knowing it.

It is a very realistic film, in two aspects: it clearly demonstrates that addictions are perverse diseases because, unlike all others, they depend exclusively on one's own will to access recovery; and that some people do not possess, nor are they capable of creating for themselves, the necessary tools to stop them. Recommended for those who are, or have been affected by alcoholics or other addicts in their immediate environment.

Cast

• Jack Lemmon: Joe Clay
• Lee Remick: Kirsten Arnesen Clay
• Jack Klugman: Jim Hungerford
• Charles Bickford: Ellis Arnesen
• Alan Hewitt: Rad Leland
• Jack Albertson: Trayner
• Tom Palmer: Ballefoy

The cast includes Jennifer Edwards, daughter of the director:.

Technical data sheet

• Production management: Jack McEdwards.
• Director Assistant: Carter de Haven, Jack Cunningham and William F. Sheehan.
• Mounting: Patrick McCormack
• Sound: Jack Solomon
• Artistic direction: Joseph C. Wright
• Costume design: Don Feld
• Decorated: George James Hopkins
• Make-up: Gordon Bau (maquillaje), Jean Burt Reilly (peluquería), Myrl Stoltz (Lee Remick's hairdresser).

Song

The title of the song, which in turn gives its title to the television drama and the film, is taken from the text of Ernest Dowson's poem Vitae Summa Brevis:

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.

Lyrics of the song, the work of Johnny Mercer:

The days of wine and roses
Laugh and run away like a child at play
Through the meadow land toward a closing door
A door marked 'Nevermore' that wasn't there before

A lonely night discloses
Just a passing breeze filled with memories
Of the golden smile that introduced to
The days of wine and roses and you

French horn: Vince De Rosa.

Awards

• Oscar the best actor/actress: Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick.
• Oscar to the best artistic direction: Joseph C. Wright and George James Hopkins.
• Oscar Oscar Oscar to the best costume design: Donfeld.
• BAFTA 1964 awards: the Best Film, the Best Foreign actor (Jack Lemmon) and the Best Foreign Actress (Lee Remick).
• Golden Globes 1963: the best drama film, the best director (Blake Edwards), the best actor (Jack Lemmon) and the best actress (Lee Remick).
• Golden Laurel 1963: the best cast actor (Charles Bickford) and the best song (Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer)