"Days of Wine and Roses" was a 1958 American teleplay by JP Miller which dramatized the problems of alcoholism. John Frankenheimer directed the cast headed by Cliff Robertson, Piper Laurie and Charles Bickford.
Production
The 90-minute telecast was presented live with tape inserts on October 2, 1958 and was the second episode of the third season of the anthology series Playhouse 90 on CBS. Costume changes were made possible because Frankenheimer taped the Alcoholics Anonymous scenes on the day prior to the live telecast. During a rehearsal, according to Miller, the producer Fred Coe dropped by and watched as Robertson and Laurie "played some of the most realistic drunk scenes ever seen anywhere. Frankenheimer was ecstatic but was quickly grounded by Coe's drawled comment, 'John, you've got the Wine. Now let's see if you can get the Roses.'"
The drama depicts the slow deterioration of a marriage due to alcoholism as ambitious ad man Joe Clay (Robertson) gets his wife Kirsten (Laurie) to join him in drinking bouts that soon begin to destroy their lives. John J. O'Connor reviewed the 1983 video cassette release in The New York Times:
Mr. Miller reveals that the idea for the play came to him one sleepless night when "I got to thinking about an uncle of mine who was a drunk." He settled on two young people who like to drink and then "fall in love with the bottle more than each other."... As Mr. Robertson observes with admirable detachment, it is raw and imperfect but "it was emotionally honest." Using the framework of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Joe gets up to address the gathering and his story is told in flashbacks that begin 10 years earlier. He meets Kirsten (Miss Laurie) at a business cocktail party. He is a young advertising executive. She is a bright secretary whose self-improvement activities have reached the point of her reading the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The drinking gets serious early on, and gradually their lives dissolve in puddles of cheap liquor. Her father (Mr. Bickford) tries to help, but the process has gone too far for mere sympathy to help... Several of the scenes remain searing.
JP Miller found his title in the 1896 poem "Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetet Incohare Longam" by the English writer Ernest Dowson (1867–1900):
They are not long, the weeping and the laughter, Love and desire and hate; I think they have no portion in us after We pass the gate.
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.
Cast
Cliff Robertson as Joe Clay
Piper Laurie as Kirsten Arnesen Clay
Charles Bickford as Ellis Arnesen
Marc Lawrence as Scarface
Malcolm Atterbury as Jim Hungerford
Martha Wentworth as Mrs. Nolan
Mimi Gibson as Debbie Clay
Dick Elliott as Mr. Trayner
Douglas Henderson as Rad
Critical reception
The episode received favorable reviews from television critics. Jack Gould, in The New York Times, praised the writing, director and cast:
It was a brilliant and compelling work... Mr. Miller's dialogue was especially fine, natural, vivid and understated. Miss Laurie's performance was enough to make the flesh crawl, yet it also always elicited deep sympathy. Her interpretation of the young wife just a shade this side of delirium tremens--the flighty dancing around the room, her weakness of character and moments of anxiety and her charm when she was sober--was a superlative accomplishment. Miss Laurie is moving into the forefront of our most gifted young actresses. Mr. Robertson achieved first-rate contrast between the sober man fighting to hold on and the hopeless drunk whose only courage came from the bottle. His scene in the greenhouse, where he tried to find the bottle that he had hidden in the flower pot, was particularly good... John Frankenheimer's direction was magnificent. His every touch implemented the emotional suspense but he never let the proceedings get out of hand or merely become sensational.
Adaptations
Film
A film adaptation of the teleplay was produced in 1962 by Martin Manulis with Blake Edwards directing Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Charles Bickford and Jack Klugman. Bickford was the only member of the TV cast to repeat his role in the movie. When Frankenheimer was not chosen to direct the movie, he was told by his agent, "John, they say you're not a comedy director." (Lemmon and Edwards, prior to 1962, were mainly associated with comedies.) The film featured a song of the same name by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer.