How to make an entertaining film about an alcoholic - it's a challenge that's been taken up a few times, rarely actually met. This Wilder-Brackett script succeeds, though - it's tough and unflinching but also imaginative - the opening shot of a bottle hanging outside an apartment, the clever bits of business that stop hero Don from having a drink (his coat with a bottle gets mixed up with others in a cloakroom, Yom Kippur means pawnshops are shut).
The main support parts are a bit bland - Wick, the long suffering brother (what's his deal?) and Helen, the good, dutiful long-suffering girlfriend with a line in patter (they used the exact same character pretty much in Sunset Boulevard). Others have more intrigue - Nat, the disapproving bartender who nonetheless is always pouring Don a drink; Gloria the fellow boozer with a crush on Don; the nurse at the psych ward.
The dialogue is a bit flowery but that suits the characters - aspiring novelist Don, researcher Helen, New Yorkers. Extremely good script. Like most Brackett-Wilders, it's divided into sequences.
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