RAY MILLAND is a troubled professor who seems to be wallowing in self-pity shortly after the death of his wife and son in a house fire. He begins to scare people with his brusque behavior, both in and out of the classroom. NANCY DAVIS and JOHN HODIAK are sympathetic friends who offer him loyal support--but nobody seems able to help Milland who seems to want to spend more time with the bottle than anything else.
The self-pity angle goes on for too long to make Milland's character likable, although his acting is quietly underplayed and altogether believable. "I know you want to help me. Most people do, but you can't," he tells Davis who had to get over her own sense of loss in the past. Davis is full of platitudes and is almost too nice, but she too plays her role well, as does Hodiak.
This goes on for the first hour and the main interest in the story is to see how and when Milland will snap out of it. Toward the end of the film he's still telling a waitress, "Find me a glass without a hole in the bottom." It takes a student athlete unable to pass one of Milland's exams that sets the plot on a final course wherein a driving accident lands him in jail and on probation. But Milland's change of heart enables him to give the flunking college student (JONATHAN COTT) another chance to pass, which he does, and he goes about setting in motion his final will, leaving his kid's bike to the boy's best friend. What happens after that, is quite predictable, but once again it's Nancy to the rescue.
Honest telling of a troubling tale of a man attempting to solve his problems with alcohol. Nowhere as engaging or powerful as Milland's most famous film, THE LOST WEEKEND, but a modestly successful drama on its own merits.
The self-pity angle goes on for too long to make Milland's character likable, although his acting is quietly underplayed and altogether believable. "I know you want to help me. Most people do, but you can't," he tells Davis who had to get over her own sense of loss in the past. Davis is full of platitudes and is almost too nice, but she too plays her role well, as does Hodiak.
This goes on for the first hour and the main interest in the story is to see how and when Milland will snap out of it. Toward the end of the film he's still telling a waitress, "Find me a glass without a hole in the bottom." It takes a student athlete unable to pass one of Milland's exams that sets the plot on a final course wherein a driving accident lands him in jail and on probation. But Milland's change of heart enables him to give the flunking college student (JONATHAN COTT) another chance to pass, which he does, and he goes about setting in motion his final will, leaving his kid's bike to the boy's best friend. What happens after that, is quite predictable, but once again it's Nancy to the rescue.
Honest telling of a troubling tale of a man attempting to solve his problems with alcohol. Nowhere as engaging or powerful as Milland's most famous film, THE LOST WEEKEND, but a modestly successful drama on its own merits.