Let me work it out my way, I'm trying. I'm trying!
Helen I know you're trying, Don. We're both trying. You're trying not to drink and I'm trying not to love you.
Played by Jane Wyman 
The Lost Weekend (1945) · 37 quotes
The Lost Weekend (1945) · 37 quotes
2nd most-quoted character in The Lost Weekend (1945): in 7 of its 37 quotes
Most scenes with: Don Birnam (6), Wick (3)
Scenes with Helen
7 scenes Helen Helen If he's left alone, anything can happen. And I'm tied up at the office every minute, all Saturday, all Sunday, I can't look out for him. You know how he gets. He'll be run over by a car, he'll be arrested. He doesn't know what he's doing. A cigarette might fall from his mouth and he'll burn in bed.
If it happens, it happens and I hope it does. I've had six years of this. I've had my bellyfull...Who are we fooling? We've tried everything, haven't we? We've reasoned with him. We've baited him. We've watched him like a hawk. We've tried trusting him. How often have you cried? How often have I beaten him up? Scrape him out of a gutter and pump some kind of self-respect into him and back he falls, back in every time.
Helen He's a sick person. It's as though there was something wrong with his heart or his lungs. You wouldn't walk out on him if he had an attack. He needs our help.
He won't accept our help. Not Don, he hates us. He wants to be alone with that bottle of his. It's all he gives a hang about. Why kid ourselves? He's a hopeless alcoholic. Let go of him, Helen. Give yourself a chance.
Goodbye.
Helen Oh, oh, just a minute. [She holds out his derby hat. He takes it from her and begins walking off] My umbrella, if you don't mind?
Catch. [He tosses it in her general direction and it falls on the floor at her feet]
Helen Thank you very much.
I'm terribly sorry.
Helen You're the rudest person I've ever seen. What's the matter with you?
Oh, just rude, I guess.
Helen Really, somebody should talk to your mother.
They've tried, Miss St. John.
Helen My name's not St. John.
St. Joseph, then.
Helen St. James.
First name Hilda or Helen or Harriett maybe?
Helen Helen.
All right, Helen.
I'm a writer. I just started a novel. As a matter of fact, I've started several but I never seem to finish one.
Helen Well, in that case, why don't you write short stories?
Oh, I have some of those - first paragraphs. And there's one half of the opening scene of a play which takes place in the leaning tower of Pisa that attempts to explain why it leans and why all sensible buildings should lean.
Helen They'll love that in Toledo.
Helen ...they could be worse. After all, you're not an embezzler or a murderer. You drink too much and that's not fatal...There must be a reason why you drink, Don. The right doctor could find it.
Look, I'm way ahead of the right doctor. I know the reason. The reason is me - what I am, or rather what I'm not. What I wanted to become and didn't.
Helen What is it you want to be so much that you're not?
A writer. It's silly, isn't it? You know, in college, I passed for a genius. They couldn't get out the college magazine without one of my stories. Boy, was I hot! Hemingway stuff. I reached my peak when I was nineteen. Sold a piece to The Atlantic Monthly. Reprinted in the Reader's Digest...My mother bought me a brand-new typewriter and I moved right in on New York. Well, the first thing I wrote - that didn't quite come off. And the second I dropped - the public wasn't ready for that. I started a third and a fourth, only by then, somebody began to look over my shoulder and whisper in a thin, clear voice like the E string on a violin. 'Don Birnam,' he whispered, 'It's not good enough, not that way. How about a couple of drinks just to set it on its feet, huh?' So I had a couple. Oh what a great idea that was! That made all the difference. Suddenly, I could see the whole thing. The tragic sweep of the great novel beautifully proportioned. But before I could really grab it and throw it down on paper, the drinks would wear off and everything would be gone like a mirage. Then there was despair, and a drink to counter-balance despair, and then one to counter-balance the counter-balance. I'd sit in front of that typewriter trying to squeeze out one page that was half-way decent and that guy would pop up again...the other Don Birnam. There are two of us, you know. Don the drunk and Don the writer. And the drunk would say to the writer, 'Come on, you idiot. Let's get some good out of that portable. Let's hock it. Let's take it to that pawn shop over on Third Avenue. It's always good for ten dollars.' Another drink, another binge, another bender, another spree. Such humorous words. I've tried to break away from that guy a lot of times, but no good. You know, once I even got myself a gun and some bullets. I was gonna do it on my thirtieth birthday. Here are the bullets. The gun went for three quarts of whiskey. That other Don wanted us to have a drink first. He always wants us to have a drink first. The flop suicide of a flop writer.
All right, maybe you're not a writer. Why don't you do something else?
Sure, take a nice job, public accountant, real estate salesman. I haven't the guts, Helen. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. I can't take 'quiet desperation.'
Helen But you are a writer. You have every quality for it - imagination, wit, pity.
Come on, let's face reality. I'm thirty-three. I'm living on the charity of my brother. Room and board free. Fifty cents a week for cigarettes and an occasional ticket to a show or a concert - all out of the bigness of his heart. And it is a big heart and a patient one...I've never done anything, I'm not doing anything, I never will do anything. Zero, zero, zero! Look Helen, do yourself a favor. Go on, clear out.
Helen I'm gonna fight, and fight and fight...
Helen Don't you want a drink, Don?
What are you up to?
Helen Nothing. I'm just ashamed of the way I talk to you - like a narrow-minded, insensitive, small-town teetotaler.
I told you, I don't feel like a drink. Not now.
Helen Oh come on, Don, just one. I'll have one with you. I'm in no hurry. This is my easy day at the office.
Look Helen, there are a few things I want to put in order before Wick comes.
Helen Let me stay. Please!
No! I don't want to sound rude, but I'm afraid you'll have to leave now.
Helen Here, Don. [She hands him a drink glass]
You're very sweet. Goodbye...
Helen You need this, Don. Drink it. I want you to drink it. I'll get you some more. I'll get you all you want.
What kind of talk is that?
Helen It's just that I'd rather have you drunk than dead.
Who wants to be dead?
Helen Stop lying to me.
[He wrestles the gun from her]
'Cause it's best all around for everybody. For you, for Wick, and for me...Look at it this way, Helen: this business is just a formality. Don Birnam is dead already. He died over this weekend...of a lot of things - of alcohol, of moral anemia, of fear, shame, DT's.
Helen There were two Dons. You told me so yourself. Don the Drunk and Don the Writer.
Let's not go back to a fancy figure of speech. There's only one Don. He's through...I'm all right. I still have enough strength left.
Helen I know you have. I can see it. Don't waste it by pulling a trigger, Don.
Oh, let me get it over with. Or do you want me to give you another one of my promises that I never keep?
Helen I don't want you to give me your promise. I don't want you to give your promise to anybody but Don Birnam.
It's too late. I wouldn't know how to start.
Helen The only way to start is to stop. There is no cure besides just stopping.
Can't be done.
Helen Other people have stopped.
People with a purpose, with something to do.
Helen You've got talent and ambition.
Talent, ambition. That's dead long ago. That's drowned. That's drifting around in the bloated belly of a lake of alcohol.
Helen No, it isn't. You still have it.
Quit trying to stall me, Helen, it's too late. There's no more writing left in me. It's gone. What do you expect - a miracle?
Helen Yes, yes, yes - if I could just make you...
[the buzzer sounds]
I found this floating around on the Nile. She writes pretty good. I oiled her up a little. And I didn't oil her up so you can hock her.
Helen Someone somewhere sent it back - why? Because he means you to stay alive. Because he wants you to write. I didn't ask for a big miracle.
[describing his book]
About a messed-up life, about a man and a woman and a bottle. About nightmares, horrors, humiliations, all the things I want to forget.
Helen Put it all down on paper. Get rid of it that way. Tell it all to whom it may concern. And it concerns so many people, Don...Of course, you couldn't write the beginning 'cause you didn't know the ending. Only now - only now you know the ending.
