The Lost Weekend with Allen Edwin Butt

The most depressing Billy Wilder film for sure. This trudge through the story of one man's recidivist bender exposes the impossibility of living with alcoholism, and walks Ray Milland right up to the brink of suicide. Frightening -- indeed it's shot and scored like a horror film -- and bleak, the film has a mesmerizing power despite its downbeat story arc. The ending rings false, but was likely necessary for audiences to swallow what they just saw. Just because it's an old movie, don't take it lightly. I would honestly not recommend watching it if you would be triggered by the unflinching portrait of an alcoholic in the throes of the disease's deepest cycles. On a par with Requiem for a Dream, especially when adjusting for the techniques and conventions of the 1940s.

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