This Friday,hirsute British comedian Russell Brand debuts as Arthur Bach , the richdrunken scamp originally played by Dudley Moore in the 1981hit comedy Arthur . In thatearlier film, Moore’s character ends his journey more or less as he began it:lovable and loaded (in both senses of the term). But thirty years on, thechildlike playboy will apparently realize the error of his boozy ways by the time the credits roll. “It was veryimportant that we establish a context where the alcoholism was humorous andgood fun but was not irresponsibly portrayed,” Brand toldReuters . (Brand’s cautiousness is understandable: He’s writtenat length about his own history with substance abuse.)
Is thelovable drunk a comic trope that’s outlived its time? Either way, here’s ourlist of performances that deserve to be put in the time capsule.
W.C. Fields, 1920s-1940s
Perhaps thegreatest, most prolific screen drunk of all time, with a reputation as aworld-class souse that extended into real life, too: He’s reputed to have saidthat he never drank water, because “fish fuck in it.” (The line is apocryphal , but itseemed too good not to repeat.) Modern Drunkard magazine notes thatFields’ comic characters weren’t just cuddly boozehounds: they were also “dishonest,profane, child-hating, prone to boasting, lecherous, and even, on occasion,physically violent.” What made their humor “connect” with audiences, though,was the fact that his characters were underdogs: they “usually absorbed moreabuse than they dispersed.” In this clip from one of his best known films, The Bank Dick , the potato-shaped,perpetually hen-pecked Egbert Sousé makes sure to follow his shot with a chaserof water—to wash his hands.
Nick andNora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy), The Thin Man , 1934
In the filmadaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s mystery novel, Powell and Loy play Nick andNora, two stylish crime-solvers who spend much of their time clinking glasses.Nick is a retired detective and Nora his socialite wife. In the trailer below,Nick’s description of the case of the “thin man” is peppered with references tothe Ritz, where he and Nora can out-martini James Bond. Sometimes theirhard-drinking ways even seem to overpower their thirst for justice. “Is heworking on a case?” a reporter asks Nora of her husband in one memorableexchange. “A case of scotch,” she replies, “Pitch in and help him.”
Dumbo, Dumbo , 1941
Settingaside the obvious ethical problems with this scene—after all, this baby boozeris far below the legal drinking age—it’s hard to deny that Walt Disney’s Dumbois the most adorable film drunk of all time. “Pink Elephants on Parade,” thenumber in which Dumbo hallucinates after accidentally drinking champagne, alsoserves an important educational purpose: It makes drunkenness look completelyterrifying. (See, especially, 2:20.) The benefits of that lesson areundermined, though, by the fact that this unintentional bender is what allowsDumbo to discover his hidden talent—the next morning, when he wakes up in atree, the crows convince him that he flew there.
John”Bluto” Blutarsky (John Belushi), AnimalHouse , 1978
Bluto is theiconic college slacker, with a tenuous grasp of history (“Did we give up whenthe Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”) and a 0.0 GPA. The film’s heroes, fraternitybrothers Larry and Kent, first encounter him peeing outside the Delta House.His best schemes seem to be alcohol-fueled—he’s the one who encourages his freshmen pledges* to steal a rival’s horse and smuggle it into the dean’s office—butthat hardly diminishes their crackpot brilliance. Check out his impersonationof a zit in the Faber College Cafeteria (warning: not for the faint of heart).Thanks in large part to the id-driven Bluto—whom his frat brothers regard witha warmhearted tolerance—the toga party went on to become a collegiateinstitution.
Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole), MyFavorite Year , 1982
O’Toole plays an Errol Flynn-like star (opposite Cousin Larry Appleton !) in thiscomedy set at a 1950s television variety show. A debonair sort of lush, Swannrepresents the opposite of the rumpled, Fields-ian drunk. (As Janet Maslin notedat the time , Swann “travels in a special suit that can be unsnapped all atonce should he need to be dunked in a shower on short notice.”) Here’s one ofhis most quotable witticisms:
Other Slate staffers’ favorite Hollywood inebriates:
C.K. DexterHaven (Cary Grant), The PhiladelphiaStory , 1940
Elwood P.Dowd (Jimmy Stewart), Harvey , 1950
HenryGondorff (Paul Newman), The Sting ,1973
Coach MorrisButtermaker (Walter Matthau), The BadNews Bears , 1976
Jimmy Dugan(Tom Hanks), A League of Their Own ,1992
Withnail and Marwood, Withnail and I ,1987
Willie(Billie Bob Thonrton), Bad Santa , 2003
RonnieBarnhardt’s mom (Celia Weston), Observeand Report , 2009
FrankGallagher (William H. Macy), Showtime’s Shameless (2011-)
— withKaty Waldman
*
Correction, April 6:
This post incorrectly
referred to
Animal House
‘s Bluto as a freshman pledge.
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