Alcoholic character study, smoothly played & intelligent, but ultimately limited by a lack of texture & one-track storyline that betray its roots in ‘Golden Age’ tv drama. Jack Lemmon & Lee Remick (in roles Cliff Robertson & Piper Laurie did on tv under John Frankenheimer’s direction) are mostly superb as the hard-drinking P.R. exec and chocolate-loving secretary who fall in love and then sink into alcoholism. He thinks he drinks for work and eventually climbs out; she starts mainly to keep up with him and then can’t stop. They each probably have one big hysterical scene too many, but are very scary when they both lose it at her old home under the eyes of Dad Charles Bickford. (Bickford played the same role on tv.) Lemmon’s even better once the wind leaves his sails in a pair of scenes against an all but lost Remick. The film, very well judged by director Blake Edwards forgoing his usual WideScreen format for intimacy, manages to avoid the stink of uplift & Good Works so often associated with addiction dramas. Instead, hitting a wall of its own making, with J. P. Miller’s adaptation of his own teleplay taking place under glass, like a docent giving a museum tour. But very fine as far as it goes.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Edwards and Lemmon, heavy tipplers in real life, pretty much quit the stuff a year or two after the film came out.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Unusually revealing (if spare) commentary track from Edwards on the DVD. The film’s sole fancy transition shot (an optical printer effect) gets a big thumbs down. ‘I wouldn’t do that today!’
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