Days of Wine and Roses is an Academy Award-winning 1962 film. It's an absorbing and frightening study of the insidiousness of addiction. Joe Clay (Jack Lemmon) meets and falls in love with Kirsten Arnesen (Lee Remick). They marry and make a child and home. In due time both succumb to the pleasures and pain of alcohol addiction.

It was written by J.P. Miller and directed by Blake Edwards.

The film pulls no punches and offers hope to those wishing to recover from the ravages of "King Alcohol."

Song origin

• The phrase "days of wine and roses" is originally from the poem "Vitae Summa Brevis" by the English writer Ernest Dowson (1867-1900):

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes

Within a dream.

Quotes

• Kirsten Arnesen Clay: Thanks for the compliment, but I know how I look. This is the way I look when I'm sober. It's enough to make a person drink, wouldn't you say? You see, the world looks so dirty to me when I'm not drinking. Joe, remember Fisherman's Wharf? The water when you looked too close? That's the way the world looks to me when I'm not drinking.
• Joe Clay: I walked by Union Square Bar. I was going to go in. Then I saw myself, my reflection in the window, and I thought, "I wonder who that bum is"? And then I saw it was me. Now look at me. I'm a bum. Look at me! Look at you. You're a bum. Look at you. And look at us. Look at us. C'mon look at us! See? A couple of bums.
• Joe Clay: You remember how it really was? You and me and booze--a threesome. You and I were a couple of drunks on the sea of booze, and the boat sank. I got hold of something that kept me from going under, and I'm not going to let go of it. Not for you. Not for anyone. If you want to grab on, grab on. But there's just room for you and me--no threesome.

Awards

Academy Awards - 1962

• Best Original Song - Henry Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics)

• Best Actor - Jack Lemmon
• Best Actress - Lee Remick
• Best Art Direction - Joseph C. Wright and George James Hopkins
• Best Costume Design - Don Feld

Other Distinguishments

• It was selected by the film critics of The New York Times as one of the 1000 best films ever made.
• Selected as one of American Film Institute's best 400 films.

Taglines

• This, in its own terrifying way, is a love story.

Trivia

• The screenplay for the film was adapted by J.P. Miller from his own 1958 Playhouse 90 television script.
• Filming Locations: San Francisco, California and Albany, California (Golden Gate Fields ractrack).

External links

• The New York Times 1000 Best Movies Ever Made
• Lyrics of Song

1962 films | Films featuring a Best Actor Academy Award nominated performance | Films featuring a Best Actress Academy Award nominated performance | Best Song Academy Award | Best Song Academy Award nominees

Le Jour du vin et des roses