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From Creator/BlakeEdwards -- the director of such future comedy classics as ''Film/{{The Pink Panther|1963}}'', ''Film/TheGreatRace'', and ''Film/TheParty'' -- comes this harrowing, heartbreaking 1962 drama about the destructive nature of alcohol addiction, adapted from a 1958 ''Series/Playhouse90'' teleplay and starring Creator/JackLemmon and Creator/LeeRemick.

Joe Clay (Lemmon), a San Francisco public relations executive and "social drinker", [[BoyMeetsGirl meets Kirsten Arnesen]] (Remick), his boss's secretary. At first they don't get along very well, but after a date where Joe introduces the [[TheTeetotaler teetotaler]] Kirsten to alcohol, they find themselves falling for each other. Eventually they get married, have a daughter and a supposedly comfortable life. Supposedly, because the stress in their lives prompts them to start drinking more frequently and slowly begins to affect their lives and those of everyone who's close to them, including Kirsten's stern-but-loving father (Charles Bickford). [[FromBadToWorse Things start to go downhill from here.]]

Before ''Film/RequiemForADream'' became a hit by depicting [[DescentIntoAddiction substance abuse]] in a very disturbing way, ''Days of Wine and Roses'' [[UrExample already did it almost 40 years earlier]], albeit with less SurrealHorror.

This is also the film that made Jack Lemmon, emblematic protagonist of the hilarious ''Film/SomeLikeItHot'' and the heartwarming ''Film/TheApartment'', an acting force to be reckoned with in heavy drama as well as comedy.

In 2023 a [[ScreenToStageAdaptation musical adaptation]] of the film opened off-Broadway, with book and score by [[Theatre/TheLightInThePiazza Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas]]. A Broadway opening of the musical is set for January 2024.

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!!''Days of Wine and Roses'' contains examples of:

* AddictionDisplacement: When Joe becomes sober after the greenhouse scene, he smokes a lot to appeal his addiction. Also, several attendants of the Alcoholics Anonymous are seen smoking for the very same reasons.
* TheAlcoholic: The main theme of the movie. Both Kirsten and Joe become unable to function without a steady supply of alcohol.
* BelligerentSexualTension: Joe and Kirsten, when they first meet.
* BittersweetEnding: Bordering on a DownerEnding. Joe eventually gets sober, but Kirsten doesn't, and they break up.
* DescentIntoAddiction: Joe arguably had a head start on Kirsten, but both deteriorate to the point that the only thing that matters is alcohol. Joe gets past it, but Kirsten doesn't.
* DramaticThunder: Accompanies the scene where Joe trashes the greenhouse looking for a hidden bottle.
* DrowningMySorrows: At the end of the film, Kirsten admits that she "can't get over how dirty everything looks" without alcohol.
* GoingColdTurkey: The harrowing scene that follows the greenhouse sequence shows Joe in a sanitarium, in a straitjacket, having a violent seizure--the [=DTs=].
* HangoverSensitivity: In a different sort of movie it might be played for laughs when Joe comes into the office hung over, but in this one it shows that he's losing control.
* HitlerCam: Combined with a POV shot. Joe has attempted to steal a bottle of liquor, but he stumbles and falls down the landing. As he squirms in the dirt the store owner trots up and takes the bottle out of his hand. Then we get the POV from Joe's shot as the liquor store owner, standing over Joe cackling evilly, pours the bottle all over Joe's face.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: From Ernest Dowson's 1896 poem "Vitae Summa Brevis" (which Kirsten [[TitleDrop recites in-universe]]):
-->''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.''
* MistakenForProstitute: When Joe first meets Kirsten he mistakes her for part of the hired female "entertainment" at a client's yacht party.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Joe introduces a reluctant Kirsten to alcohol using chocolate, her favorite food. Had he not done it, he could have avoided the future Hell they would be living.
* OffTheWagon: Joe and Kirsten try to quit alcohol while working for Kirsten's father, but late one night, in one of the film's more harrowing sequences, Joe gives in to temptation and ransacks a greenhouse looking for a hidden bottle of booze.
* SoundtrackDissonance: One scene has Joe encountering a drunken Kirsten in a seedy motel room while a WesternAnimation/BugsBunny cartoon plays on a TV in the background.
* TitleThemeTune: Composed by frequent Blake Edwards collaborator Music/HenryMancini and with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, it won the UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Original Song.
* ToxicFriendInfluence: Kirsten was a straight-laced secretary until she met Joe, who -- without intending to -- turns her into an alcoholic wreck. Kirsten's father quite correctly calls Joe out for this.
--> '''Pop''': You started my daughter drinking!
* TropaholicsAnonymous: The film was one of the first to show an alcoholic getting help with addiction through Alcoholics Anonymous.
* UncomfortableElevatorMoment:
** Or the equivalent thereof on a boat, as Joe and the hookers for the yacht party stare at each other awkwardly as they zip out to the yacht on a launch.
** There's also one in an actual elevator, as Kirsten and Joe have a spat in the office building and then wind up taking the same elevator down.

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