"Come Fill The Cup" might actually be the first film to realistically describe alcoholism as a disease, and the surprise here is how the story tackles the idea that no one can help an alcoholic get sober except the alcoholic himself. For Charley Dolan (James Gleason), the road to sobriety began when he heard the sound of 'angel feathers'. Lew Marsh (James Cagney) described it like more of a whirring sound, when he took a peek into the void and realized that he was afraid to die. It's pretty unusual to get all of this kind of psychological insight in a 1950's Warner Brothers flick; most of the time they were simply portraying the ills of society while allowing the viewer to make up their own mind about things. But here, the story makes it fairly clear that there's really no cure for alcoholism, and that most drunks have to hit rock bottom fairly hard before climbing back up.
In Cagney's case, his character probably made it look a bit too easy, going cold turkey after five lost days in a drunk tank. A fired newspaperman, he claws his way back to respectability with the help of friend Charley, returning as a reporter at the Sun-Herald. Eventually, he's asked by his editor Julian Cuscaden (Larry Keating) to get involved with the publisher's nephew, a would be composer (Gig Young) who's having his own troubles with the bottle. Complicating things is the presence of Paula Copeland (Phyllis Thaxter), Lew's ex-girlfriend, now married to Boyd Copeland (Young). Perhaps as a nod to Cagney's success in the gangster film genre, the story introduces a criminal element as a result of Boyd's extra-marital involvement with the girl of big time hood Lennie Garr (Sheldon Leonard). I think the story could have been effective without the mobster angle, as it kind of drew your attention away from the main plot, but I guess it served it's purpose. A critical scene near the finale had the ex-drunks facing down the thugs, giving the good guys a chance to redeem themselves on a number of different levels.
There was a fairly clever scene, I thought, about midway through when it became apparent that Boyd Copeland was on the way to staying sober. His only friend was a dog he called 'nameless', but through no effort on the dog's part, he earned the name of Corky. That was a pretty insightful comment on an alcoholic's new found sense of self worth.
At some point in the picture, I was reminded of 1962's "Days Of Wine And Roses", another movie dealing with alcoholics hitting rock bottom and then trying to get straight. In that one, it was a couple (Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick) that had to deal with their personal demons. Coming a decade later, it's probably the stronger of the two stories, but that doesn't diminish the effect that "Come Fill The Cup" will have on you. The story draws you in quickly and you find yourself totally engrossed in the characters, making it's almost two hour run time breeze by pretty quickly.
In Cagney's case, his character probably made it look a bit too easy, going cold turkey after five lost days in a drunk tank. A fired newspaperman, he claws his way back to respectability with the help of friend Charley, returning as a reporter at the Sun-Herald. Eventually, he's asked by his editor Julian Cuscaden (Larry Keating) to get involved with the publisher's nephew, a would be composer (Gig Young) who's having his own troubles with the bottle. Complicating things is the presence of Paula Copeland (Phyllis Thaxter), Lew's ex-girlfriend, now married to Boyd Copeland (Young). Perhaps as a nod to Cagney's success in the gangster film genre, the story introduces a criminal element as a result of Boyd's extra-marital involvement with the girl of big time hood Lennie Garr (Sheldon Leonard). I think the story could have been effective without the mobster angle, as it kind of drew your attention away from the main plot, but I guess it served it's purpose. A critical scene near the finale had the ex-drunks facing down the thugs, giving the good guys a chance to redeem themselves on a number of different levels.
There was a fairly clever scene, I thought, about midway through when it became apparent that Boyd Copeland was on the way to staying sober. His only friend was a dog he called 'nameless', but through no effort on the dog's part, he earned the name of Corky. That was a pretty insightful comment on an alcoholic's new found sense of self worth.
At some point in the picture, I was reminded of 1962's "Days Of Wine And Roses", another movie dealing with alcoholics hitting rock bottom and then trying to get straight. In that one, it was a couple (Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick) that had to deal with their personal demons. Coming a decade later, it's probably the stronger of the two stories, but that doesn't diminish the effect that "Come Fill The Cup" will have on you. The story draws you in quickly and you find yourself totally engrossed in the characters, making it's almost two hour run time breeze by pretty quickly.