Days of Wine and Roses (1962) on Netflix
Drinking is part of the job for Joe Clay, a public relations man in San Francisco. He meets Kirsten Arnesen, a secretary who prefers chocolate, and introduces her to Brandy Alexanders.
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- IMDb7.8/1015,248 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Joe Clay is an account executive at a San Francisco public relations firm, where entertaining clients keeps him drinking. At a client party he meets Kirsten Arnesen, a secretary who does not drink and would rather have chocolate. He courts her, and she brushes him off at first. He mixes her a chocolate-tasting Brandy Alexander, and she finds she likes the way a drink makes her feel. Her father, Ellis Arnesen, runs a nursery and landscaping business in San Mateo and has misgivings about Joe. The two marry and have a daughter, Debbie. As pressure at work builds, Joe drinks more, and Kirsten, alone at home with their daughter, drinks to pass the time.
Cast
- Debbie Megowanas Debbie Clay
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Jack Lemmon said the studio pressured the production to change the ending, so scenes were filmed in the same order as they appear in the script rather than grouped by location, and Lemmon then left for Europe and stayed out of communication so the studio would be forced to release the movie without changing the story.
- Bill Withers was inspired by Days of Wine and Roses while watching it on television: the doomed relationship at the film's center brought a phrase to mind, and it led him to write "Ain't No Sunshine" in 1971.
- Director Blake Edwards said that he and Jack Lemmon were heavy drinkers while making the film; Edwards became a non-drinker a year after completing it and went into substance-abuse recovery.
- Both of the film's stars, Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick, sought help from Alcoholics Anonymous themselves, long after they had completed the film.
- JP Miller found the film's title in an 1896 poem by the English writer Ernest Dowson, who lived from 1867 to 1900, and the same poem inspired the title song written by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer.
