Days of Wine and Roses (1958) - #495

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.

First, let me get the disappointing news out of the way: while watching this version of Days of Wine and Roses, you won't be able to listen to Henry Mancini's gorgeous, elegiac, Oscar-winning song. That was saved for the more famous 1962 movie adaptation starring Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick, directed by Blake Edwards. So I've done you the favor of sharing the tune via this link, if you'd like to give it a spin. But it's really not necessary and maybe even works a bit against the grainy, rough-hewn realism of this original presentation of a romance both enabled and ultimately destroyed by alcoholism. As the final selection offered up in Criterion's The Golden Age of Television box set, Days of Wine and Roses sufficiently marks the end of its era, as the phenomenon of live televised broadcasts of original stage productions finally fizzled out in response to increasing production costs and a wider audience acceptance of filmed and edited sitcoms, cop shows, doctor dramas and Westerns as staples of their nightly TV diet.

A product of the longer format made possible by Playhouse 90's hour-and-a-half running time, Days of Wine and Roses demonstrates that even as live television was nearing the end of its run as a distinct subgenre of American theater, it wasn't due to a lack of creativity or compelling subject matter. There's a good reason that J.P. Miller's script (with significant changes, not necessarily for the better) went on to serve as the basis of a successful and still-respected Hollywood movie just a few years later. He tells a terrific, though ultimately heart-breaking, story that probably played a substantial role in framing the problem of alcohol abuse away from moral failure or simple over-indulgence brought about by insufficient exertion of willpower. From one angle (and rather obvious, hard to miss), Days of Wine and Roses plays out like a calling card or even a fundraising pitch for Alcoholics Anonymous.

The story is told within a flashback framework at a local AA meeting, as John Clay gets up to give his first talk after four months of sobriety that followed a decade of drunken downward spiral. He recounts, with a few interruptions from the boozer who opened the program draining a pint in a shadowy alley next door, his sad tale of woe that began ten years earlier at an office party. He made the acquaintance of Kirsten, a pretty secretary who made herself comfortable in that setting through frequent trips to the open bar. He's out to prove that he's capable of being more than a low-level office flunky if he only gets the chance. She's looking for acceptance and purpose even as she wrestles with anxieties about being murdered in the bushes. Recognizing that they share a mutual enjoyment in escaping the tensions of the day in a good stiff drink, they happily succumb to the onrush of inebriation that sweeps over them - was it the liquor, the night, or sheer physical attraction that drew them together? Probably all that and more had its influence, but actors Cliff Robertson and Piper Laurie had a real chemistry on screen that comes through strongly despite the subpar lighting and murky kinescoped image that survives to this day. I really had the sense of a young couple finding love together, no matter how flimsy a foundation they seemed to build it upon.

Joe's bankable skills are summarized, in his own words, as "a great line of bull," which puts him on the career arc of becoming a public relations man. Not to mention a conniving codependent dysfunctional and untrustworthy addict. When their daughter Debbie comes along early on in the marriage, Kirsten's maternal drives are powerful enough to make it easy for her to put the bottle aside for awhile, but Joe's two-martini lunches and evenings spent schmoozing his company's big clients pressure her to return to the good-time gal persona that initially drew them together. The progressive stages of ruin that their alternations between indulgence, craving and short-lived periods of abstinent sobriety that follow over the course of Joe's retelling are predictable enough, but the episodes are poignantly drawn. We see Joe push back against the advice of his boss to lay off the juice, the family's descent into poverty as they sell off every last thing of value in order to buy another jug and the sick procession of thinking errors and desperate rationalizations that cloud their judgment. It culminates in a wild outburst of manic energy as Joe spectacularly falls off the wagon, destroying his father-in-law's greenhouse in frantic search for a bottle of rye that he'd hidden in a flower pot but was too drunk to properly remember where.

Sorry to say, but I'm unable to find any extended clips of the charismatic and effective performances turned in by either Robertson or Laurie. The only sample available on YouTube is posted below, but it's a spoiler from near the very end of the movie. Before I get to that, I just want to reflect a bit on the genuine sense of sadness and loss I felt over the course of Days of Wine and Roses, as we see a cute young couple deteriorate so dramatically before our eyes. Joe's charming swagger, probably a compensation for underlying insecurities, and Kirsten's fascination with literature (she quotes the poetry that leads off this essay and gives the play its title as part of her initial infatuation with Joe) and her quest to read her entire multi-volume encyclopedia from A to Z - both characters resonated with me! And though I've never struggled with addiction anywhere near the level portrayed on screen here, I've overdone it enough - and convinced myself that I was having great fun - at various times in my life to have a sense of empathy for what they were going through... as well as an appreciation for the real damage that they were doing to themselves, their relationship and their daughter (who plays only a small part in the squalid goings-on - I don't think TV was quite ready to drag children directly into drunken bedlam back then.)

And the marvel of it all is that this was done, again, in one continuous take. Well, there are a few videotaped sequences blended in - the flashback interludes of Joe giving his AA talk were pre-recorded so that Cliff Robertson didn't have to execute miraculous wardrobe changes to pull off his scenes. But he does flip the switch between emotions ranging from booze-fueled giddiness, rage and mockery to grim white-knuckle sobriety and severe introspection. It's an amazing display of nerve and talent to commit to such volatile moodswings over the course of a brief 90 minutes with the cameras rolling on coast-to-coast TV.

So it's no wonder that Days of Wine and Roses caused viewers to take notice and eventually led to a full-fledged movie production (like several of the other titles in The Golden Age of Television.) It's been a long time since I saw the Lemmon-Remick-Edwards version, and I hope to get a chance to do a comparison in the not too distant future. The quick take I've read is that the film expands the setting to picturesque San Francisco (a big plus in my book) but that it plays up the comedic elements and sentimentality a bit to take advantage of Jack Lemmon's strengths as an actor. I'm not in any position to say which is better, but my hunch is that this raw first take that probably introduced a lot of Americans to the 12 Steps (seen on a wall-hanging as "The 12 Suggested Steps" - maybe AA was trying to not come across as too authoritarian or scary or something?) might leave a more vivid impression than the slick star vehicle designed to provided a well-rounded entertainment package for mainstream viewers of its time. (It was, after all, Blake Edwards' follow-up to Breakfast at Tiffany's.)

Anyway, it's time for me to share that clip - and wouldn't you know, "embedding disabled by request." So I guess that means you really have to go get it if you want to check out a sample. Watching it again, just a short 53-second snippet, stirs my emotions once more, as Joe lays some tough love on Kirsten as they reach a critical point in their journey. It's not as much of a spoiler as I thought it would be either, since a new viewer wouldn't really know how she answers his question. But even in that small fragment, the confidence and sincerity of Robertson and Laurie come through in their respective parts, reminding me that for all the audio-visual shortcomings of the 1950s era video-to-film-to-video-to-DVD presentations that we get in this three-disc Golden Age set, it is truly a treasure chest of some of the finest and gutsiest American acting of its time that we have access to today. A remarkable collection that in its own way played a pivotal part in expanding and opening the barriers to free expression that the Nouvelle Vague and all the cultural tumult of the 1960s was on the verge of unleashing.

Next: Ashes and Diamonds