The Lost Weekend (1945)

Ray Milland: Don Birnam

Photos 

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Quotes 

• [Nat moves to wipe away the circle of whisky from Don Birnam's glass] 

  Don Birnam : Don't wipe it away, Nat. Let me have my little vicious circle. You know, the circle is the perfect geometric figure. No end, no beginning.

• Don Birnam : Don's a little tight. Most people drink a little. A lot of them get tight once in awhile.

  Don Birnam : Sure, the lucky ones who can take it or leave it. But, then there are ones who can't take it and can't leave it either. What I'm trying to say is: I'm not a drinker; I'm a drunk.

• Don Birnam : It shrinks my liver, doesn't it, Nat? It pickles my kidneys, yeah. But what it does it do to the mind? It tosses the sandbags overboard so the balloon can soar. Suddenly I'm above the ordinary. I'm competent. Extremely competent! I'm walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. I'm one of the great ones. I'm Michaelangelo, molding the beard of Moses. I'm Van Gogh painting pure sunlight. I'm Horowitz, playing the Emperor Concerto. I'm John Barrymore before the movies got him by the throat. I'm Jesse James and his two brothers, all three of them. I'm W. Shakespeare. And out there it's not Third Avenue any longer, it's the Nile, Nat. The Nile and down into the barge of Cleopatra.

• Don Birnam : [to Wick and Helen]  Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. I can't take quiet desperation!

• Gloria : Lovely gentleman. He buy's me dimple scotch.

  Don Birnam : He should buy you Indian rubies and villa in Calcutta overlookin' the Ganges

  Gloria : Don't be ridic'.

  Don Birnam : Gloria, please. Why imperil our friendship with these loathsome abbreviations?

• Don Birnam : Just give me another drink.

  Nat : Mr. Birnam, this is the morning?

  Don Birnam : That's when you need it most - in the morning. Haven't you learned that yet? At night this stuff's a drink. In the morning, it's medicine.

• Don Birnam : Love is the hardest thing in the world to write about. It's so simple. You've gotta catch it through details, like the early morning sunlight hitting the gray tin of the rain spout in front of her house, the ringing of a telephone that sounds like Beethoven's Pastorale, a letter scribbled on her office stationary that you carry around in your pocket because it smells like all the lilacs in Ohio. Pour it, Nat!

• Don Birnam : What kind of party was that you asked me to?

  Helen St. James : A cocktail party.

  Don Birnam : Invitation still stand?

• Don Birnam : You know, in college I passed for a genius. They couldn't get out the college magazine without one of my stories. Boy, was I hot. Hemingway stuff. I reached my peak when I was 19. Sold a piece to the Atlantic Monthly, reprinted in the Readers Digest. Who wants to stay in college when he's Hemingway? My mother bought me a brand new typewriter and I moved right in on New York. Well, the first thing I wrote, that didn't quite come off. And the second I dropped, the public wasn't ready for that one. I started a third and a fourth. Only, by then, somebody began to look over my shoulder and whisper, in a thin, clear voice, like the E-string on a violin, "Don Birnam," he whispered, "is not good enough. Not that way. How about a couple of drinks to set him on his feet, huh?" So, I had a couple. Oh, what a great idea that was! That made all the difference. Suddenly, I could see the whole thing. The tragic sweep of the great novel, beautifully proportioned. But, before I could really grab it and throw it down on paper, the drinks would wear off and everything would be gone, like a mirage. Then, there was despair and the drink to counterbalance despair and then one to counterbalance the counterbalance.

• Don Birnam : Why'd they put me in the alcoholic ward?

  'Bim' Nolan, Male Nurse : Are you kiddin'? We had a peak of your blood. Straight apple jack. 96 proof.

• Don Birnam : [Last lines]  Out there in that great big concrete jungle, I wonder how many others there are like me? Poor bedeviled guys on fire with thirst. Such comical figures, to the rest of the world, as they stagger blindly towards another binge, another bender, another spree.

• Don Birnam : Are you in the phone book?

  Helen St. James : Yes, but I'm not home very much.

  Don Birnam : Well, I'll call you at your office.

  Helen St. James : Editorial Research. If Henry Luce answers, hang up.

• Don Birnam : [after buying two bottles of rye whiskey]  I'm not a minor, Mr. Brophy, and just to ease your conscience, I'm buying these to refill my cigarette lighter.

• Don Birnam : Do you ever lie in your bed looking at the window? A little daylight's coming through and you start to wonder. Is it getting lighter? Is it getting darker? Is it dawn or is it dusk? That's a terrifying problem, Nat. Because, if its dawn, you're dead! The bars are closed. The liquor stores aren't open until nine o'clock and you can't last until nine o'clock! Or, it may be Sunday. That's the worst. No liquor stores at all and you guys wouldn't open a bar until one o'clock. Why? Why, Nat?

  Nat : Because we got to go to church once in awhile, that's why.

  Don Birnam : Yeah. When a guy needs it most!

• Wick Birnem : Trees and grass and sweet cider, buttermilk and water from that well that's colder than any old...

  Don Birnam : Wait, please! Why this emphasis on liquids? Very dull liquids!

• Gloria : You're awfully pretty, Mr. Birnam.

  Don Birnam : I bet you tell that to all the boys.

  Gloria : Why, natch'. Only, with you, it's on the level.

• Don Birnam : Helen's heard the facts. That's all there is to it.

  Helen St. James : Yes, I've heard them and they're not too pleasant. But, they could be worse. After all, you're not an embezzler or a murderer. You drink too much! And that's not fatal.

• Don Birnam : Let me have one, Nat. I'm dying. Just one.

• [first lines] 

  Wick Birnem : You better take this along, Don. It's gonna be cold on the farm.

  Don Birnam : Okay.

  Wick Birnem : How many shirts are you taking?

  Don Birnam : Three.

  Wick Birnem : I'm taking five.

  Don Birnam : Five?

  Wick Birnem : Yeah, I told them at the office I might not be back until Tuesday. We'll get there this afternoon. That'll give us all Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. We'll make it a long, wonderful weekend!

  Don Birnam : It sounds long all right.

• Don Birnam : What are they playing?

  Helen St. James : Brahms second symphony, something by Beethoven, something by Handel and not one note of Grieg.

• Don Birnam : Who likes Brahms? You or I?

  Wick Birnem : Since when don't you like Brahms?

• Don Birnam : If that's going to be your attitude Nat, I shall have to drown my sorrows with a jigger of rye. Just one, that's all.

  Nat : Can't be done, Mr Birnam.

  Don Birnam : Can't? Now, let me guess why. My brother was here undermining my financial structure.

  Nat : I didn't tell him nothin' about the wristwatch you left or your cufflinks.

  Don Birnam : Thank you very much, Nat. Today you'll be glad to know we can barter on a cash basis.

  Nat : One straight rye.

  Don Birnam : That was the idea.

• Don Birnam : I can't let her see me, not when I'm off like this.

  Nat : Why don't you cut it short?

  Don Birnam : Don't talk like a child. You can't cut it short! You're on that merry-go-round, you got to ride it all the way. Round and round till that blasted music wears itself out and the thing dies down.

• Don Birnam : There's now being presented at a theater on 44th Street the uncut version of Hamlet. Now, I see us as setting out for that. Do you know Hamlet?

  Gloria : I know 44th Street.

  Don Birnam : I'd like to get your interpretation of Hamlet's character.

  Gloria : I'd like to give it you.

• Don Birnam : One should always see Shakespeare on an empty stomach.

  Gloria : Not even a pretzel?

• Don Birnam : Now, Gloria, wasn't it rather rude to send that nice man all alone to Grant's tomb?

  Gloria : When I've got a chance to go out with you? Don't be ridic'.

• Don Birnam : Is our engagement definite?

  Gloria : You meant it, didn't you?

  Don Birnam : Oh, surely, surely.

  Gloria : Well, I've got to get a facial and a finger wave, the works! Right now!

• Don Birnam : Like the last one, Nat. Pour it softly, pour it gently and pour it to the brim.

• Don Birnam : Give me a drink!

  Nat : And that other dame, the lady, I mean. I don't like what you're doing to her either.

  Don Birnam : Oh, shut up!

  Nat : You should have seen her come in here last night, looking for you. Her eyes all rainy, the mascara all washed away.

  Don Birnam : Give me a drink!

• Nat : How the heck did she ever get mixed up with a guy who sops it up like you do?

  Don Birnam : That's a problem, isn't it. That nice young man who drinks and a high class young lady and how did she ever get mixed up with him? And why does he drink? And why doesn't he stop? That's my novel, Nat. I wanted to start writing it out in the country. Morbid stuff. Nothing for the book-of-the-month club. A horror story! The confessions of a booze addict. The log book of an alcoholic. Oh, come on, Nat, break down, will ya?

  [Nat pours Don another drink] 

  Don Birnam : You know what I'm going to call my novel? The Bottle. That's all. Very simply, The Bottle. I've got all here in my mind.

• Don Birnam : Well, how do you like New York?

  Helen St. James : Love it.

  Don Birnam : Intend to stay long?

  Helen St. James : Oh, sixty years, perhaps.

• Helen St. James : I live here now. I have a job.

  Don Birnam : Doing what?

  Helen St. James : Time Magazine.

  Don Birnam : Oh, Time Magazine. Perhaps you can do something for me?

  Helen St. James : Yes?

  Don Birnam : Could you help me become Man-of-the-Year?

• Don Birnam : Would you like a taxi?

  Helen St. James : No, thanks. I'm taking the subway.

  Don Birnam : Oh, very sensible.

  Helen St. James : As a matter of fact, I'm going to an extremely crazy party on Washington - Square.

• Helen St. James : There must be a reason why you drink, Don? The right doctor could find it.

  Don Birnam : Look, I'm way ahead of the right doctor. I know the reason. The reason is me - what I am. Or, rather, what I'm not. What I wanted to become and didn't.

  Helen St. James : What is it you want to be so much that you're not?

  Don Birnam : A writer! Silly, isn't it.

• Don Birnam : Another drink, another binge, another bender, another spree!

• Don Birnam : I've never done anything! I'm not doing anything! I never will do anything! Zero! Zero! Zero!

• Don Birnam : She knows she's clutching a razor blade; but, she won't let go!

• Gloria : You do like me a little, don't ya, honey?

  Don Birnam : Why, natsch' Gloria, natsch'.

• 'Bim' Nolan, Male Nurse : Where do you live?

  Don Birnam : 209 East Fif- What do you need that for?

  'Bim' Nolan, Male Nurse : For the postcard.

  Don Birnam : What postcard?

  'Bim' Nolan, Male Nurse : To your folks. So they'll know where honey boy is and can pick him up when he's feeling better.

• 'Bim' Nolan, Male Nurse : Prohibition - that's what started most of these guys off. Whoopie. Now, be a good boy and drink this.

  Don Birnam : I don't want it.

  'Bim' Nolan, Male Nurse : Better take it. Liable to be a little floor show later on, around here. It might get on your nerves.

  Don Birnam : Floor show?

  'Bim' Nolan, Male Nurse : Ever hear of the DTs?

  Don Birnam : No!

  'Bim' Nolan, Male Nurse : You will, brother.

  Don Birnam : Not me!

  'Bim' Nolan, Male Nurse : Like to make a little bet? After all, you're just a Freshman. Wait till you're a Sophomore. That's when you start seeing the little animals. You know that stuff about pink elephants? That's the bunk. It's little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the key holes. See that guy over there? With him, its beetles. Come the night, he sees beetles crawling all over him. Has to be dark though.

• Helen St. James : Give me the pawn ticket.

  Don Birnam : Look, I don't want you to go in there and claim it now. It would look queer.

• Don Birnam : It's too late. I wouldn't know how to start!

  Helen St. James : The only way to start is to stop!

• Don Birnam : Sure, the lucky ones, who can take it or leave it. But then there are the ones who can't take it but can't leave it either.