One Too Many (1950) User Reviews

Musical Numbers, That Is

[SweetWilliam63 · 7/10 · 8 August 2016]

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.

Her smash-up is the story of a woman who will not cry tomorrow.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 8 October 2014]

Ruth Warrick's Helen Mason is the seemingly perfect mom, a combination of June Cleaver, Donna Reed, and Carol Brady. But Mrs. Mason has one issue. She drinks. A lot. And when she starts to drink, she can't stop. When her husband (Richard Travis) finds her one night passed out at the kitchen table, it is very apparent that this isn't the first time he's had to carry her to bed. After a drunken visit with an old musician pal, Warrick gets so intoxicated that she shows up at her husband's newspaper office, embarrassing him in front of his boss (an imperious Thurstan Hall) who despises drunks and refuses to acknowledge that alcoholism is a disease that its victims cannot control.

Even a stay in a rehab center doesn't help Warrick who disappears on a drunken toot while Travis is attempting to take her home. This puts their sensible daughter (Ginger Prince) in jeopardy when Warrick takes her for a drive and proceeds to pass out behind the steering wheel! The brave little girl actually takes over driving, and mommy ends up in the psycho ward of the local hospital. It is up to her husband to convince his boss with the help of some investors that the local hospital needs to add facilities to help victims of alcoholism, and this is where the movie's moral "message" comes into play.

The beloved Ruth Warrick dominated "All My Children" for over three decades as the imperious Phoebe Tyler, and while that character had her own bout with drinking problems, it is here where Warrick picked up the characteristics that made the matriarch of Pine Valley's descent into alcoholism so realistic. Travis is also excellent as the husband who at first seems to be in denial (in fact, he agrees with her morning drink to relieve "that hair of the dog"), while Prince is simply amazing as the heroic little girl who cries over nasty rumors at her school that mommy is a drunk, but never steps back when it comes to supporting her. Warrick's agitation at Prince's affections obviously build up her desire for a drink, and it shows the split personality effects that too much drinking can have, even between a mother and their child.

While this goes into great detail to explain the various issues which cause alcoholism and some general statistics, the film also pads its running time with some unnecessary musical interludes which seem totally out of place. Some of the minor characters add dramatic impact to the plot, particularly an alcoholic bartender who still serves liquor even though he can't drink it. It is Warrick's intense performance which holds this together, going into great detail to document how a nice person can become a totally different one thanks to something readily available. As one person points out, as long as there are plants to make alcohol out of, people will drink.

A comprehensive study in alcoholism and what might cure it

[clanciai · 10/10 · 17 June 2023]

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.