Sunday, September 18th, 4:00 p.m. The Museum of Moving Images screens "The Lost Weekend." "The Lost Weekend," stars Ray Milland and Jane Wyman and is based on the bestselling, autobiographical novel by former Hotel Chelsea resident Charles Jackson.
"The Lost Weekend," is the story of Don Birnman, who has the good fortune of getting a short story published in The Atlantic Monthly at the age of 19. Don takes that to be a sign that he should quit college and move to NY and become a writer. Unable to write another story, Don succumbs to writer’s block/alcoholism, familiar maladies here at the Hotel Chelsea. After all, the Do Not Disturb signs here at the Chelsea read “Don’t Bother Me!” I’m writing the next great American novel.”
Two women are infatuated with Don: his long suffering girlfriend (Time Magazine editor Henry Luce’s gal Friday) Helen St. James, and Gloria, the hooker who hangs out in P.J. Clarke's, Don’s favorite bar. (Unfortunately, they never show the inside of the men’s room, which I hear from reliable sources had the mother of all urinals before the bar was yupscaled a few years ago). In classic Edith Head style, both women are exquisitely attired. Gloria makes her entrance in a black sheath with a sexy, see-through, lacy top, and we first see Helen St. James at the Opera in a leopard skin coat.
Don goes for a quick drink at P.J. Clarke’s at 55th & 3rd. One drinks turns to two and then the next thing you know he's on a bender that ends with him trying to pawn his typewriter up and down Third Avenue. When he can't find a pawnshop open, he borrows money from Gloria, but at least she gets to keep her clothes. He pawns Helen’s Leopard Skin Coat.
Suffering from DT’s near the end of the bender, Don consults the bartender at P.J. Clarke’s about how his proposed autobiographical novel should end, the bartender advises Don that the character should kill himself. He helpfully recommends several options: either get his gun out of hoc, or, if he doesn’t have enough money for that spend $1 for a trip to the top of the Empire State building and jump.
The movie won four Oscars. Actor (Ray Milland); Director (Billy Wilder); Best Motion Picture; and Screenwriting. Nothing for Edith Head this time. She wasn’t even nominated. Oh well, can’t win them all.
Sadly, on Sept 22, 1968, Charles Jackson, at the age of 65, took an overdose of sleeping pills in the Chelsea Hotel.
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