Ep# 44 - Ann Kibbie's 60s Pick - Days of Wine and Roses
Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Cinema60 welcomes Ann Kibbie, professor of English Literature at Bowdoin College and intellectual mentor to Bart, to talk about her ‘60s pick: Days of Wine and Roses (1962). A booze-soaked Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick film about the dangers of alcoholism might not immediately seem like the sort of pick you’d expect a professor of 18th Century British Literature who wrote a book called Transfusion: Blood and Sympathy in the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination to choose... And yet, there’s an intrigue towards the macabre that links Ann’s interests to this movie - a film that she aptly classifies as part of the horror genre.
In this episode, Bart, Jenna and Ann discuss addiction, midcentury repression and the ugly side of humanity as depicted in cinema – tracing back the components of Days of Wine and Roses to those of films noirs, monster movies, public service announcements, and black comedies. It might sound like a bit of a whiplash, but for a film that starts out with a Jack Lemmon peanut brittle meet-cute and eventually ends with him screaming while tied to a table in a mental institution, it tracks at least.
The following film is discussed:
• Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Directed by Blake Edwards
Starring Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford, Jack Klugman
Also mentioned:
• Dracula (1931)
Directed by Tod Browning
Starring Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners
• Frankenstein (1931)
Directed by James Whale
Starring Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff
• Laura (1944)
Directed by Otto Preminger
Starring Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb
• The Lost Weekend (1945)
Directed by Billy Wilder
Starring Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry
• From Here to Eternity (1953)
Directed by Fred Zinnemann
Starring Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra
• Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Directed by Jack Arnold
Starring Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning
• The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
Directed by Otto Preminger
Starring Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, Eleanor Parker
• Pal Joey (1957)
Directed by George Sidney
Starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak
• Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957)
Directed by Frank Tashlin
Starring Tony Randall, Jayne Mansfield, Betsy Drake
• Some Came Running (1958)
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Starring Jrank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine
• Some Like It Hot (1959)
Directed by Billy Wilder
Starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon
• The Apartment (1960)
Directed by Billy Wilder
Starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray
• La Dolce Vita (1960)
Directed by Federico Fellini
Starring Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée
• Psycho (1960)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Starring Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles
• Experiment in Terror (1962)
Directed by Blake Edwards
Starring Glenn Ford, Lee Remick, Stefanie Powers
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Directed by Robert Aldrich
Starring Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono
• Tom Jones (1963)
Directed by Tony Richardson
Starring Albert Finney, Susannah York, George Devine
• Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
Directed by Gordon Douglas
Starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr.
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Directed by Mike Nichols
Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal
• How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967)
Directed by David Swift
Starring Robert Morse, Michele Lee, Rudy Vallee
• The Odd Couple (1968)
Directed by Gene Saks
Starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler
• “Playhouse 90”: Days of Wine and Roses (1958)
• ”Peter Gunn” (1958–1961)
• “The Odd Couple” (1970–1975)
