Joan Crawford soaper, directed by Otto Preminger, with a familiar plot of Joan being torn between two men (married lawyer Dana Andrews and returning soldier Henry Fonda). Joan made these sorts of love triangle melodramas all the time in the 1930s. Despite the hackneyed romance, this is actually a pretty interesting film. For one thing, it has more of a noirish look than those earlier Joan melodramas. For another, it deals with some pretty adult material for a movie of its time, like child abuse, divorce, and even an easy-to-overlook bit about a civil rights case where a Japanese-American soldier had his farm taken from him while he was fighting in the war. Finally, it's well-acted all around and each of the stars gets some good material to work with. Yeah, Joan's style from this period (shoulder pads, heavy eyebrows, and general masculine femininity) can be a little distracting at times, but Preminger does a good job of making the rest of the picture so attractive you are able to look past that. It's worth a look if you are a fan of the three stars or the director, but it isn't the best any of them have done.
Review of Daisy Kenyon
