When Paramount Pictures Inc. decided to film The Lost Weekend, the horrendous novel about a dipsomaniac, it also uncorked a stream of scuttlebutt. Tongues wagged that the liquor industry was trying to stop Paramount, had tried to buy it off with $2,000,000, etc. Last week, as the movie won the plaudits of critics & public, Seagram-Distillers Corp. added its own.
In six-column ads in newspapers, Seagram congratulated Cinemactor Ray Milland for his "magnificent performance" as a depraved alcoholic, urged everyone to see the film. The preaching, said Seagram's, was exactly what it...