Inside Daisy Clover

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 6:10pm

Too good to be truly bad. Too bad to be truly good.

Moments of brilliant truth mixed with moments of sheer camp.

I'm watching the movie now and haven't seen it in years! I'm amazed by the performances of Natalie Wood, Robert Redford (in his breakthrough role on film), Ruth Gordon (Oscar-nominated as the crazy mother), Christopher Plummer (the same year he played Captain Von Trapp) ...

Also good performances by Roddy McDowall as the publicist and Katharine Bard as Plummer's wife.

Songs by Andre and Dore Previn (and I love "You're Gonna Hear From Me!")

It's a 1930s movie with 1960s hair and costumes (Oscar-nominated by Edith Head).

Has this ever been adapted for the stage? I think it would make a fascinating Broadway musical.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 6:21pm

The circus is wacky world, how I love it!

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 6:24pm

That number starts out almost "fun" and ends up being sheer torture!

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 6:25pm

I gotta say I love the Andre Previn score (outside of the songs). It sounds like it belongs in "L.A. Confidential."

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 6:30pm

It's definitely a trippy film. I think a lot of films that were made in the 1960's that were supposed to be period pieces wound up with modern looking clothing and hair styles, just look at FUNNY GIRL or HARLOW (Carroll Baker) version.

I never understood why they changed the time period of DAISY CLOVER for the film. I believe the original novel took place in the 1940's and '50s and the story bore more than a striking resemblance to Judy Garland.

I love the film - flaws and all - but I may be a bit biased as I'm a fan of Natalie Wood.

Updated On: 4/7/13 at 06:30 PM

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 6:41pm

It definitely feels like a faux Garland bio-pic.

The way Dreamgirls feels like a faux Supremes bio-pic.

And Redford's character feels like a mix of Errol Flynn and Montgomery Clift. (He is excellent, by the way.)

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 6:48pm

The film has a strong, strong cast...it's the script that should have been polished up...I don't really care for "The Circus Is A Wacky World" it's embarrassing to watch Natalie Wood prancing around in that ridiculous costume. "You're Gonna Hear From Me" is tops, though.

Wood always chose roles that at times paralleled her own life. In GYPSY she was the daughter of a domineering stage mother and in CLOVER an exploited child star.

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 6:51pm

I really love it. I think the screenplay is pretty great, but you're right, it does need some polish. And some of it is "good to go" as is.

I think it should be a Broadway musical (keep the one song: You're Gonna Hear From Me, and ditch the other).

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 7:05pm

I would love to see someone tackle this as a stage musical.

The scene where Natalie is in the studio looping a scene and has a nervous breakdown in the booth is chilling.

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 7:10pm

^ I agree!

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 7:18pm

"I think a lot of films that were made in the 1960's that were supposed to be period pieces wound up with modern looking clothing and hair styles, just look at FUNNY GIRL or HARLOW (Carroll Baker) version. "

Or Cleopatra... To be fair, I think this is true of many eras--you can date period films to when they were made by the way they look as much as to when they were meant to be set--but it does seem to be particularly true of the 60s.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 7:19pm

I remember LOVING the novel so much when I found it at a used bookstore.

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 7:25pm

PJ, I haven't read the novel.

I admit it's a "must" now.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 7:44pm

Then let me also recommend Herman Woulk's MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR.

It's the novel I read when I thought I was going to read INSIDE DAISY CLOVER. Apparently I've reached an age when Natalie Wood films run together in my mind.

Fortunately, MORNINGSTAR is entirely worth it.

Now I just need to actually find DAISY CLOVER.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 8:22pm

I've read MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR as well...it's a very good novel and it was interesting for me as a Puerto Rican boy growing up in the Bronx reading this novel about a girl from a very Jewish family who come into wealth and move from the Bronx to Manhattan's Upper West Side where she dreams of becoming an actress, against her parents wishes.

I remember the novel being very specific about how practicing Jewish families lived, their traditions and their views and how Marjorie was trying to break out of what was expected of her because she did not want to conform...

I love the movie as well but like any film based on a best seller it deviates from it's source material, but not as much as INSIDE DAISY CLOVER does.

Now I'm going to make some time to re-visit these two films this week.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 8:24pm

Marjorie Morningstar was my autobiography.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 9:22pm

So there was a Noel in your life PJ? Do tell...

[Jose]

Posted: 4/7/13 at 11:50pm

The coming Spring must have brought Daisy Clover in on a breeze today.

Earlier today I was sharing some information about André Previn's work elsewhere and it included two tracks of music from his score for this film. I did a little research and learned that Natalie Wood's voice on the circus number and "...Hear From Me" were dubbed by Jackie Ward.

Ms. Ward appears to have had a career dubbing and providing voices in Hollywood. I had never heard of her before today and there's no reason why I would although I knew that it was not Natalie's voice singing. The musical numbers in Daisy Clover never sat well with me--they always seemed false. Now I know why.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 4/8/13 at 12:35am

I was Marjorie Morningstar. We moved from the Bronx to Riverdale

And I went to summer stock in 1971. I was 15 at the time, the baby in the company. I fell in love with a 17-year-old ballet dancer who was playing the Serpent in the Apple Tree. He was tall and had curly brown hair and legs that seemed to go on forever. He was a beautiful, sexy Serpent. And I was his "curly-haired Jewish boy." We were each other's first loves.

But there was an Evil Choreographer in the company--a talentless hack who practiced watered-down Fosse with dull, unimaginative sadism--and by the end of the summer, he had seduced my beautiful Serpent away from me. He did it deliberately, vindictively, just to show that he could. I spent the rest of the summer being consoled by the women of the company, who thought the choreographer was an asshole anyway.

Our last date, after the summer was over, was for a Saturday matinee at the Winter Garden Theater in September. We saw my beloved Follies--me for the 4th time, he for the 1st, from the last two rows of the balcony, which Hal Prince used to sell for $2.00 a ticket. It was my parting gift to him.

We didn't speak to each other for 35 years, until 2006.

Sometime in the mid 1980s, I heard the Evil Choreographer had died. So many people were dying then--people I admired and cared about, people I loved, people who were good people--that I scarcely thought about this one man's death. There was no revenge, no satisfaction, just an acceptance: "Of course he died too. With all these people dying, how could he not have died as well?"

My Serpent and I had a reunion. At the recent revival of Follies--house seats this time. It was my reunion gift to him.

And that is my Marjorie Morningstar story. A little gayer than Herman Wouk, but every bit as melodramatic.

Updated On: 4/10/13 at 12:35 AM

[SweetLips]

Posted: 4/8/13 at 1:01am

'You're gonna hear from me' was an audition piece of mine--how egotistical.
PalJoey-thank you for sharing a very special part of your life.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 4/8/13 at 7:44am

Pal Joey - thanks for sharing that!

@ Joe: Yes, Jackie Ward dubbed the musical numbers in INSIDE DAISY CLOVER. She also dubbed Natalie in THE GREAT RACE for the song, "The Sweetheart Tree", was the singing voice of "Cindy Bear" in the film, HEY THERE, IT'S YOGI BEAR! had a bit part in the 1965 television version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's CINDERELLA, sang on the theme song from MAUDE as well as provided background vocals for THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY and as part of The Ron Hicklin Singers can be heard on the 5th Season version of the THAT GIRL theme as well as the theme to LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE.




An Interview with Jackie Ward Updated On: 4/8/13 at 07:44 AM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 4/8/13 at 8:43am

"Too good to be truly bad. Too bad to be truly good."

About sums it up.

[artscallion]

Posted: 4/8/13 at 9:15am

One of my favorite parts of Ruthless is when little Tina gets locked up in The Daisy Clover School for Psychopathic Ingenues...and then sings about it.

[best12bars]

Posted: 4/8/13 at 11:32am

Carlos, thanks so much for posting that interview with Jackie Ward.

It's a fascinating read. The life of a hugely successful session singer.

The songs and films she has been a part of are staggering (800 movies??? Everything from Hello, Dolly to Annie to Grease ...), commercials (Rice-a-Roni. TV theme songs (Batman, Love American Style, That Girl ...). Plus Carpenters, Mama Cass hits, etc. Great stuff.

[Jon]

Posted: 4/8/13 at 3:42pm

"You're Gonna Hear From Me" was Karen Ziemba's big audition piece when she stated in the business.

I also recall Lainie Kazan singing it on an episode of The Paper Chase - the dreaded "talent show" episode that nearly every TV series used to have. Lainie played a frumpy, middle aged law student, and she shocks everyone with her singing ability.