Days of Wine and Roses (Playhouse 90)

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. and Piper Laurie in John Frankenheimer's 1958 production of JP Miller's Days of Wine and Roses for Playhouse 90. 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.) Robertson's loss of the role to Lemmon prompted Robertson to buy the film rights to another TV play he appeared in, Two Worlds for Charley Gordon, and develop it himself as a producer. Musical A musical adaptation based on the teleplay and subsequent film was produced by the Atlantic Theater Company in 2023, starring Kelli O'Hara as Kirsten and Brian d'Arcy James as Joe. The musical has a book by Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, the same writing team behind The Light in the Piazza, and is directed by Michael Greif. It opened May 5, 2023 and is scheduled to close July 5 of the same year. ==Revivals==

In 2003, Rachel Wood directed the New York stage premiere of Days of Wine and Roses, an off-Broadway production by the Boomerang Theatre Company. In 2005, the Northern Irish writer Owen McCafferty relocated Days of Wine and Roses to London in the 1960s, reworking it to focus on a young couple just arrived from Belfast. That stage version had a West End premiere at the Donmar Warehouse directed by Peter Gill, who had previously staged McCafferty's National Theatre hit, Scenes from the Big Picture. ==Legacy==

The Criterion Collection included the teleplay as part of a special edition three-disc box set entitled The Golden Age of Television, which was part of a PBS anthology series. In addition to the teleplay, is an introduction featuring interviews with the cast and crew about the production. • Days of Wine and Roses film (1962) ==References==