In ten years Joan Crawford went from being "box office poison" to winning an Oscar for "Mildred Pierce" to almost winning again for "Possessed" - most critics felt she should have won but Loretta Young did for "The Farmer's Daughter". Both director, Otto Preminger, and star, Henry Fonda, wished to forget "Daisy Kenyon" later in their careers and it was a film that opted for mushy romance over psychological drama, elements it had in abundance.
Commercial artist Daisy Kenyon (Crawford) is being given the runaround by her married lover Dan (Dana Andrews). Initially he comes across as a brash charmer juggling mistress and family but in reality his wife is a neurotic who takes her frustrations out by abusing younger daughter Marie (Connie Marshall)!!! But Daisy is getting fed up with always coming second and the endless waiting by the telephone, so when she meets Peter (Fonda) who impulsively asks her to marry him she says yes.
This movie could have gone in so many directions rather than down the road to romance. There was the child abuse angle - Marie was always a bundle of nerves at the thought of being left with her mother and even turns up at court with a bandaged ear but Dan seems oblivious to everything but his own happiness. At the end he even indicates that both mother and daughter would get used to each other in time but he had to be free!! Again, another sequence shows him accepting a brief (he was a lawyer of course) that dealt with a Japanese man who had won the Purple Heart but returned to find his home had been seized. Dan was told accepting this case would make him feel more worthwhile and not just a society lawyer. He takes the case and loses but you only hear about it, by this time the movie is really the Daisy and Dan story!! Oh, and Peter has some psychological problems stemming from the death of his first wife. He often wakes up at night with horrible nightmares. His problems, too, are miraculously righted and the end of the movie shows the three of them snowed in at a mountain cabin where Peter and Dan, like in a court case, put forward their cases as to why they are the best person for Daisy.
Peter Fonda comes off best (probably because he is a better actor than Dana Andrews) but his pacing and demeanor are so dreamlike, it was almost as though he was in a different movie - he probably wished he was!!
Commercial artist Daisy Kenyon (Crawford) is being given the runaround by her married lover Dan (Dana Andrews). Initially he comes across as a brash charmer juggling mistress and family but in reality his wife is a neurotic who takes her frustrations out by abusing younger daughter Marie (Connie Marshall)!!! But Daisy is getting fed up with always coming second and the endless waiting by the telephone, so when she meets Peter (Fonda) who impulsively asks her to marry him she says yes.
This movie could have gone in so many directions rather than down the road to romance. There was the child abuse angle - Marie was always a bundle of nerves at the thought of being left with her mother and even turns up at court with a bandaged ear but Dan seems oblivious to everything but his own happiness. At the end he even indicates that both mother and daughter would get used to each other in time but he had to be free!! Again, another sequence shows him accepting a brief (he was a lawyer of course) that dealt with a Japanese man who had won the Purple Heart but returned to find his home had been seized. Dan was told accepting this case would make him feel more worthwhile and not just a society lawyer. He takes the case and loses but you only hear about it, by this time the movie is really the Daisy and Dan story!! Oh, and Peter has some psychological problems stemming from the death of his first wife. He often wakes up at night with horrible nightmares. His problems, too, are miraculously righted and the end of the movie shows the three of them snowed in at a mountain cabin where Peter and Dan, like in a court case, put forward their cases as to why they are the best person for Daisy.
Peter Fonda comes off best (probably because he is a better actor than Dana Andrews) but his pacing and demeanor are so dreamlike, it was almost as though he was in a different movie - he probably wished he was!!