Lemmon and Remmick are compelling as is the fine supporting cast. This is a great movie to covey the message about the dangers of drinking to young people. As a side note, I attended high school and was quite freindly with one J. D. Miller's sons. Unfortunatly the lessons of the story were not learned by his offspring. Then again, that was almost 40 years ago. Maybe there's a happy ending in there somewhere.


Skip the DVD version   January 17, 2004
 5 out of 9 found this review helpful

A classic, no doubt about it. But if you're buying the DVD version for anything but the widescreen effect, forget it. The "extras" consist of two versions of a self-congratulatory trailer (Jack Lemmon breaking character to expound on what a bold movie they'd made.) Meanwhile, the much-touted "interview" with Lemmon is a corny promotional device apparently aimed at local TV stations, with the actor, seen talking on the phone, rattling off answers to trite pre-scripted questions, giving the impression that he was actually having a phone interview with local TV personalities whose own images were later edited into the split-screen featurette.And the less said about director Blake Edwards' "commentary", the better.After explaining that he's not much good "at this kind of thing," Edwards proceeds to prove it in spades by confessing he hasn't seen the movie in 40 years, professing to be surprised when he realizes (10 minutes in!) that the film wasn't shot in color, then actually wonders aloud how audiences will be able to understand the plot if he keeps talking throughout the movie. Sad!


A MODERN REALITY   July 29, 2003
 4 out of 6 found this review helpful

This is as modern a portrayal of alcoholics struggling
against the disease with the help of AA as you'll ever
get, especially if you are an experienced AA attender.
The characters were played out with excellent skill,
and present day realism.

The delivery through black and white cinema
had the same profound impact on me that CITIZEN KANE did,
and a bit more than did LOST WEEKEND, which I also
rated "excellent".

Any active alcoholic wanting, but not quite ready
for, an AA meeting should rehearse with this masterpiece.
It showed the way it REALLY IS (and will be!)

RATING: 5/5 10/10
Bill Schaefer
Berwyn PA
ephraim@chesco.com


Not Everyone Can Resist the Lure   June 28, 2003
 23 out of 27 found this review helpful

The Hollywood depiction of the corrosive effects of alcoholism has rarely been so stark as that in DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES. More recent efforts like LEAVING LAS VEGAS suggest that alcoholism is but one offramp on the highway of self-destruction. Director Blake Edwards presents a tale that begins in middle-class happiness, then winds down to the sodden depths of the perversion of Corporate Suburban America, before finishing with the brutal truth that the ability of an alcoholic to free himself from this disease is a function of his inner strength that can only be nurtured, not forced, by Alcoholics Anonymous.

Jack Lemmon is Joe Clay, a man on the rise in his corporate culture. He is a public relations executive, a job that today we would call a spin control mechanic. He makes the good image of a company better while trying to downplay the downside. This image of altered reality forms a subtext which becomes evident when Joe and his fiancee (Lee Remeck) are having dinner with her father (Charles Bickford), who is trying to understand exactly what his daughter's boyfriend does for a living. Joe hems and haws but admits to enhancing the positive aspects of his corporate clients. But the father persists and asks what about any harmful sides to that image. Joe weakly adds that he would then gloss over the downside while always bringing the positive to bear. It is this altering of reality that allows Joe, then later his wife, to get caught up in the freewheeling culture of a drug abuse that has now morphed in one of cocaine. The lure of Wine and Roses is neither absolute nor irresistable. The film makes it clear early on that much time and dissolution is needed to become entangled. One does not take a sip one day to become ensnared the next. Joe Clay makes the crossover from social drinker to hard drinker so gradually that neither he nor his wife are aware until the evidence is so blatant that both recognize the dangers, but still feel the need to explain away these dangers as inconsequential. First Joe falls in, then soon enough his wife. The scenes of Joe's going hysterically mad in his father-in-law's greenhouse and in the county asylum are harrowing in their intensity. Joe has cracked, and it takes the arrival of an AA counselor (Jack Klugman) to place Joe on the right path. But the path to sobriety has many false turns, and Joe has yet to hit rock bottom. The contrapuntal scenes of Lee Remick's own descent in the corked maelstrom are more subdued but not the less miserable. Joe has hit rock bottom and the harsh truth is that he cannot help his wife until he first learns to help himself. By the closing credits, she has yet to learn this most bitter of lessons.

DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is one of the landmarks of Hollywood in that it takes a no punches withheld look at a subject that many Americans have heard about but perhaps have not seen the consequences that result when the social drinker uncorks that bottle even when alone. Lemmon and Remick are simply outstanding as a couple in which one of them learns this lesson even if the other does not.