ABSTRACT
The alcoholic family, that family form defined by the presence of an alcoholic in its midst, is an alcohol-centered social structure. Three social realism films made between 1952 and 1962 challenged this myth. Come Back, Little Sheba (1952), The Country Girl (1954), and Days of Wine and Roses (1962) focus solely on the alcoholic family, and conceptualize alcoholism as a family illness. These films created the modern version of the alcoholic family. In the 1950s the cultural, economic, and social structures of capitalism were creating massive changes in the organization of American work and family life. The postwar family melodrama became the model for the family alcoholism films. The alcoholic family bears the guilt of sexual transgressions. Everyone pays, nobody wins. If sexuality and desire are to be regulated in postwar society, a price has to be paid. Come Back, Little Sheba suggests that the price is high.
