Playing a drunk onscreen differs from stage work, and not just because viewers can make out the label on your poison of choice. Cameras close the distance between actor and viewer; nuances come into play.
Good screen actors project the whispered despair alcohol summons, make you feel the bourbon- sweat seeping from pores. In comic roles, their eyes light with six- pack silliness.
If you’re interested in the craft of onscreen inebriation, here’s a list. It’s incomplete (sorry, Albert Finney and Dudley Moore) and utterly subjective. But you still have eight memorable studies in getting blotto, and all are available on DVD.
Dramatic turns
Orson Welles, “Touch of Evil”: Beyond his accomplishment as director of this 1958 classic about intrigue in a Mexican border town, Welles turned in a memorable performance as a corrupt, alcoholic cop.
Worth the rental alone is a riveting scene where he lurches into the bar/brothel owned by Marlene Dietrich’s Tanya. He’s oozing booze. His old flame sits at a table, turning tarot cards.
“Come on, read my future for me,” he demands.
“You haven’t got any,” she says. “Your future’s all used up.”
Nicolas Cage, “Leaving Las Vegas”: All alcoholics are ultimately destroying themselves, but few do it with the single-minded purpose of Cage’s Ben Sanderson, a failed screenwriter who hits the Strip for one last binge, bent on oblivion.
The scene where he giddily piles a bar’s worth of booze into his grocery cart is chilling, a harbinger of heartbreak to come.
Ray Milland, “The Lost Weekend”: One of the first movies to examine life inside a bottle, this 1945 film chronicles an alcoholic who, after 10 days on the wagon, embarks on a devastating four-day bender. Milland won a best-actor Oscar, while Billy Wilder took home the golden trophy for best director.
Lee Remick, “Days of Wine and Roses”: Remick is superb in this study of the woe that is in marriage, desperate alcoholic housewife division. Her character marries a boozing Jack Lemmon, who introduces her to the bottle’s insidious lure – and the slow slide down.
Comic relief
Peter O’Toole, “My Favorite Year”: In this homage to television’s Golden Age, O’Toole plays a fading screen legend, sort of a cross between Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn, set to guest star on a variety show.
Panicked upon learning he must perform live, he goes on a scotch-whiskey meltdown. Hilarious – the drunk-suit scene is priceless – but emotionally resonant. This is a sad man damaged by loss of his own making.
Homer Simpson, virtually any episode of “The Simpsons”: Yes, we know it’s TV animation, but Dan Castellaneta’s voice work remains the embodiment of Duff-fueled doofiness, careening between liquid-courage swagger and bleating pathos. In the immortal words of Springfield’s favorite son: “Alcohol – the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”
Jimmy Stewart/Katherine Hepburn, “The Philadelphia Story”: One of the most sophisticated Hollywood comedies ever, the repartee between Hepburn and Stewart in their classic drunk scene is a model of rapier wit and comic timing. “Dear Mr. Professor!” indeed. George Cukor directed this 1940 film.
Lee Marvin, “Cat Ballou”: Marvin, so adept at heavies and heroes, showed his comic touch in this 1965 Western spoof. He played two roles: Kid Shelleen, a gunfighter and lush, and his snake of a brother. Classic scene: The drunken Shelleen astride his drunken horse, both of them leaning against a building so they won’t collapse.
Memorable line: Told that his eyes are bloodshot, Shelleen says, “You ought to see ’em from my side.”
