Taglines: Nights of shame and terror!
Days of Wine and Roses movie storyline. This thoroughly depressing drama concerns the battles of a young couple against the insidiousness of alcohol addiction. Joe (Jack Lemmon) and Kirsten (Lee Remick) are young newlyweds with a seemingly bright future. Joe is an up and coming public relations worker with a promising career. When the pressures of the job become too much, he takes solace inside a bottle of booze.
Kirsten joins the party in order to relate to her husband, and the two get down to some brain cell killing, liver damaging drinking that would make F. Scott Fitzgerald and W. C. Fields blush. Joe’s career takes a decidedly downward turn, losing his job as the couple continues to tip more than a few. They move in Kirsten’s father, who owns a greenhouse. After a night of drinking, Kirsten reveals she hid a bottle hidden under one of the greenhouse plants.
In a terrifying scene, Joe tears up all the plants trying to unearth the hidden bottle, ruining his father-in-law’s budding plants. Joe also goes through withdrawals in a mental hospital in yet another disturbing scene of horrible alcohol addiction. He seeks help from a 12 step group, but Kirsten can’t shake the grip of demon alcohol. By now, the couple has a young daughter, and a sober Joe realizes he may have to leave the woman he loves when she becomes hopelessly addicted.
Days of Wine and Roses is a 1962 American drama film directed by Blake Edwards with a screenplay by JP Miller adapted from his own 1958 Playhouse 90 teleplay of the same name. The film was produced by Martin Manulis, with music by Henry Mancini, and features Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford and Jack Klugman. The picture opened in wide release in the United States on December 26, 1962. The box-office receipts for the film were good, given the numbers reported are in 1962 dollars. It earned $4 million in United States theatrical rentals, ranking it 14th among high-grossing films of the year. The total domestic sales were $8,123,077.
he title song by Johnny Mercer and Henry Mancini won an Academy Award. while Lemmon and Remick received well deserved nominations for their gripping portrayals of the tortured couple whose lives are ruined by booze. An Academy Award went to the film’s theme music, composed by Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The film received four other Oscar nominations, including Best Actor and Best Actress. In 2018, Days of Wine and Roses was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
The film’s locations included San Francisco, Albany, California, and the Golden Gate Fields race track. The Oscar-winning title song had music by Henry Mancini and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Single records by Andy Williams and the Henry Mancini chorus made the Billboard Top 40.
Director Blake Edwards became a non-drinker a year after completing the film and went into substance-abuse recovery. He said that he and Jack Lemmon were heavy drinkers while making the film. Edwards used the theme of alcohol abuse often in his films, including 10 (1979), Blind Date (1987) and Skin Deep (1989). Both Lemmon and Remick sought help from Alcoholics Anonymous long after they had completed the film. Lemmon revealed to James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio his past drinking problems and his recovery. The film had a lasting effect in reinforcing the growing social acceptance of Alcoholics Anonymous.
In the interview on Inside the Actors Studio, Lemmon stated that there was pressure by the studio to change the ending. To preserve the integrity of the movie, scenes were filmed in the same order as they appeared in the script, with the last scene filmed last. This is in contrast with the standard practice of filming different scenes together that take place in the same location, which reduces expenses, shortens the schedule, and aids with scheduling the actors’ time on set. Immediately following the completion of filming, Lemmon left for Europe and remained out of communication so that the studio would be forced to release the movie without changing the story.
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Directed by: Blake Edwards
Starring: Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford, Jack Klugman, Alan Hewitt, Tom Palmer, Debbie Megowan, Maxine Stuart, Jack Albertson, Leon Alton, Don Anderson, Mary Benoit
Screenplay by: JP Miller
Cinematography by: Philip H. Lathrop
Film Editing by: Patrick McCormack
Costume Design by: Donfeld
Set Decoration by: George James Hopkins
Art Direction by: Joseph C. Wright
Music by: Henry Mancini
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: December 26, 1962 (United States)
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