One Too Many

This is much more than just a film about alcoholism, and not only the lead character (Ruth Warrick) is important, but there are many characters here of vital importance, one of them being the bartender (Rhys Williams) who both introduces the film and finishes it off, another being the politician, running for mayor of the town (Victor Kilian) who is caught bare-handed on a drinking bout in the street for unruly behaviour, which makes headlines, his drinking leading him straight down to nowhere, the child Ginger Prince who makes a gorgeous performance, the husband Richard Travis, who gets sacked for having a drunk wife, and his colleague, the constantly drunk Billy Leighton (William Tracy) who actually makes the best scene of the film as the expectant father watching through the glass the sensitive operation of his wife giving birth, a marvellous pantomime performance, saying nothing but expressing everything, and so on. The subject is serious of course and treated in full, and we never learn the full background story. It is evident though that Ruth Warrick was a rising concert pianist of the first rank, then she married and had her daughter and started drinking and could not stop. We never learn the actual outcome of her various treatments, but she does play again in the end, so you must suspect that it was partly the music that saved her. The Harmonaires introduce the finale with three wonderful performances before she enters the scene to at last reveal her true self.

This lousy film was made by producer Kroger Babb, who made a living out of exploitation movies. I suppose he would have been a pornographer but censorship of same left sensationalist fare as his bag of tricks.

Ruth Warrick has the lead role as a pianist plagued with alcoholism. Her quaint family life is thereby disrupted, but almost two hours of dullness ensues, making it a chore to sit through. I felt sorry for her - a decade after co-starring in the all-time classic "Citizen Kane" reduced to this crap.

Babb memorably sort of risked respectability by acquiring the rights to Ingmar Bergman's "Summer with Monika" starring Harriet Andersson, and selling it as a sex picture, giving Ingmar his first American hit. All that proves is that the movie business is a continuum -it takes all kinds of content (and come-on) to satisfy the hungry fans.

It would be easy to dismiss this movie as dated, preachy and painfully ironic. It's no "Lost Weekend'. However, 'One Too Many' has some solid performances (Ruth Warrick in particular) and takes it's subject matter seriously. Ahead of it's time, this movie treats alcoholism as a disease and tackles the issue with a thoughtful and compassionate story line that outweighs a sometimes unsophisticated script. It's focus is on alcoholism but it indirectly manages to comment on a number of social issues that we still deal with today from feminism, socialized medicine, politics and mental illness. Hallmark would go on to make similar message movies on TV in the 70's and 80's. (A remake of 'One Too Many' stars a young Michelle Peiffer in a 1985 "After School Special".) The musical numbers are long and weirdly misplaced and William Tracy hams it up for the camera but maybe this was a way to disguise the serious subject matter and market the movie to a larger movie audience. There are some dark ironies here, like when the Doctor talks about the ravages of alcohol on the body while passing out cigarettes - but one problem at a time. 'One Too Many" draws you in with an unsubtle directness on a social problem that, even sixty five years later, is still dismayingly relatable.