THE CINEMA
" The Lost Week-End." At the Plaza.
BILLY WILDER is an important director with an almost cynical atti- tude to life. In Double Indemnity he moved his puppets through a sordid tangle of lust and mercenary murder and achieved a com- pelling, if unpleasant, film. In The Lost Week-End he repeats his former success. I found myself absorbed in the story without liking any of it. Here is a dipsomaniac, says the film ; let us watch without pity or love how drink will reduce this reasonable human being to a cheat, a liar and a thief. Here is our human guinea-pig and here the bottles of rye whisky. The acting is brilliant, the invention unflagging and the story gains by being set against an extremely realistic background of New York life and manners. It should be seen both as an example of what Hollywood can do when it rims its mind to it and as a reminder of what celluloid is capable of achieving when it is used by a good director.
ALEXANDER SHAW.
Previous page
