Review: INSIDE DAISY CLOVER / Robert Mulligan (1965)
December 7th, 2008 by Scott Marks
Inside Daisy Clover (1965)
Directed by Robert Mulligan
Written by Gavin Lambert based on his novel
Starring: Natalie Wood, Christopher Plummer, Robert Redford, Katharine Bard, Roddy McDowall, Ruth Gordon, Betty Harford and Harold Gould
Running Time: 128 min.
Photographed by Charles Lang in 
and 
Rating: 
Natalie Wood was 27 when she stepped inside Daisy Clover, a character we watch age from 14 to 17. Daisy is a fiercely independent, chain-smoking, gum-cracking scrapper and no matter how many sprayed-on freckles or prematurely gray hairs (that look as though they were cut with a butter knife) that Max Factor added, I never bought Wood in the role.
The closest Daisy gets to the Hollywood limelight is her job on the Boardwalk where she hawks 8 x 10 portraits of the stars. The good news is they’re autographed. The bad news is it’s Daisy’s handwriting. We never get a feel for what it is about Daisy that drives her passion. See doesn’t appear to go to the movies nor does she ever discuss her dreams of crashing Hollywood with anyone. One day she presses a record, the next a limo turns up to collect Daisy from her Angel Beach, CA hellhole where she lives with her mother “Old Chap” (Ruth Gordon). After a brief stint in the studio system, Ms. Gordon took a twenty year vacation from screen acting. Daisy Clover finds Ruth reinventing herself as the doddering, but lovable eccentric she spent the rest of her career milking. Needless to say, she received her first Academy Award nomination. A lot of Ruth Gordon’s forced characterization goes a little way. It worked best in Rosemary’s Baby, but in Harold and Maude I longed for the release that death eventually brought her.
It isn’t long before the minor child is in the arms of matinee idol Wade Lewis (Robert Redford) and under the wing of studio mogul Raymond Swan (Christopher Plummer). Long before biting George Segal’s tush in Where’s Poppa?, another of Ruth Gordon’s on-screen offspring battled with the concept of putting momma in a home. A clause in Daisy’s contract demands that she release all rights to her mother. Stopping just short of a lobotomy, Swan wishes to pull a Rosemary Kennedy and have Old Chap permanently institutionalized and stricken from the record.
While trying so hard to avoid cliches, the script also sidesteps real drama. During her meteoric three year rise, Daisy observes and interacts, but there is never a sense of involvement or understanding. With the exception of Swan, none of the characters are developed or interesting enough to grab you. On top of that, their ideas lack motivation.
Production designer Robert Clatworty (Touch of Evil) does an outstanding job of redressing existing locations to evoke the period. By cleverly working around modern day signage, Clatworthy and cinematographer Charles Lang brilliantly transform 1965 Santa Monica Pier into the fictional 1936 Angel Beach. If only the filmmakers had paid this close attention to detail when recreating period film clips. The movie boasts two allegedly show stopping CinemaScope musical numbers that couldn’t be worse if Jean Negulesco staged them. You’re Gonna’ Hear From Me should have started with a close-up and then gone wide instead of being photographed entirely in ECU. Mulligan and crew present an inaccurate patchwork montage of Hollywood musical cliches wrapped around the 1960s fascination with outer space. (Daisy actually dances around Saturn’s rings!) Catchy though it may be, Andre and Dory Previn’s song is straight out of the 1950s, as are Edith Head’s splashy costumes. And just what in hell are 60s special effects doing in a tribute to 30s musicals? Set long before Baby Gumm was born in a trunk, Lambert’s so-called satiric number does little more than pay lip service to George Cukor. Later we’re shown a 30s promotional reel comprised of snippets from Intolerance, Gold Diggers of 1933 and San Francisco, many of which are given an anamorphic stretch.
Continue reading Review: INSIDE DAISY CLOVER / Robert Mulligan (1965)
Tags: inside daisy clover, inside daisy clover review, Movie Review, natalie wood, Robert Redford, ruth gordonDVD Review: THE WAY WE WERE / Sydney Pollack (1973)
November 22nd, 2008 by Scott Marks
The Way We Were (1973)
Directed by Sydney Pollack
Written by Arthur Laurents
Starring: Barbra Streisand, Robert Redford, Bradford Dillman, Lois Chiles, Patrick O’Neal, Herb Edelman, Viveca Lindfors, Murray Hamilton and James Woods in his first film
Photographed by Harry Stradling, Jr. in Panavision and Eastmancolor
Running Time: 118 min.
Rating: 
Gene Siskel didn’t drive, and after the preview of The Way We Were (it sneaked with the Robby Benson film One On One), he stood in front of the Golf Mill Theatre looking for a cab.This was a few years before At the Movies transformed him into one of America’s most recognizable, if not top, movie critics. There weren’t many hacks cruising Milwaukee Ave. at 10:30 on a Friday night, so Gene accepted my offer of a lift home and was good enough to buy my friend and me a burger at the old Lum’s in Old Town. We all agreed that One on One was the better of the two and I’d probably still feel that way today were the same double bill presented to me.
Let’s begin with a couple of pet annoyances. When a character removes a pot from a hot stove and transfers a spoonful of its contents to another character’s mouth (who in turn winces from the scalding spoon), they should never handle and return said pot to their lap lest they covet third degree thighs.
Nothing undermines painstaking period detail quicker than an anachronistic haircut. Though the film takes place during and after World War II, Robert Redford’s thatched, Summer Boy headdress smacks of Santa Monica Pier c.1973. There is a running hair motif that has Streisand lightly adjusting the fallen locks of her goyisha-kup lover doll’s feathered do. The only man allowed to have hair hanging over his forehead in the 1940s was Hitler. Put away the damn blow dryers when you’re making a period piece! While of the subject of anachronisms, check out Patrick O’Neal’s swingin’ wardrobe. He looks like Peter Lawford subbing for Dickie Dawson on a game show.
Streisand plays an outwardly tough dame who alternates between fiercely independent and hopelessly needy. By day she’s a college student championing Leftist causes. (Her bedroom is painted red and she cries when FDR dies even though she has a huge picture of Uncle Joe Stalin hanging in her living room.) Away from the rallies she’s a virginal meeskite who turns into a lap dog the second Hubbell (Redford) is around. Spotting him in a bar she can’t wait to take him back to her place and hop Hubbell’s telescope. She’s a dishrag waiting for some buff surfer to come along and wipe his hands all over her.
Continue reading DVD Review: THE WAY WE WERE / Sydney Pollack (1973)
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