Inside Daisy Clover

I remember this movie was highly publicized in the 1960s, but it had no appeal to me then as a teenager. As an adult, however, I was pleasantly surprised. Natalie Wood plays an oddball 15-year-old. It took every ounce of her acting skills, since she was nearly 30 when she made the film. And it requires a willing - heck, make that mandatory - suspension of disbelief on the viewer's part. But it's worth it.

Wood plays against type, since she's not the suave glamor princess she usually played in other movies. And the movie itself is pretty odd, particularly in a scene where Wood's character has to repeatedly over-dub a musical number. And somewhat shockingly, during the otherwise serious dramatic arc of Inside Daisy Clover, you will suddenly be treated to several minutes of what is - at least in my dark-humor-loving eyes - one of the funniest, laugh-out-loud suicide scenes I've ever seen.

Particularly if you're a Natalie Wood fan, this film is quirky, fun, and worth watching.

Brassy, singing tomboy near Hollywood in the 1930s gets a screen test and is soon thrust into the crazy spotlight of Tinsel Town. Ham-handed soaper intends to paint show business as cool, decadent and uncaring, but director Robert Mulligan is unable to set an appropriate tone, and his bad guys are enigmatic shadies who conspire in whispers. This combined with Natalie Wood's raucous rendering of a 15-year-old results in some problems. Still, the look and atmosphere of the film are really extraordinary, and Christopher Plummer gives off sparks of neurotic heat as the head of the movie studio. Robert Redford is a good screen match for Natalie, although his love-interest role is steeped in the hypothetical; Wood herself runs hot and cold, though she has some very strong early moments. The pacing might've stood some picking up, and the movie is much too long, but it looks stylish and has a lot of talent behind it. **1/2 from ****

Almost everything about this film ... from the casting and acting, to the plot, to the musical numbers, to the costumes and hairstyles ... seems fake.

Natalie Wood, 27 years old, plays 15-year old Daisy Clover, a spunky tomboy/brat/beach bum extraordinaire. Daisy, who lives with her eccentric elderly mom, played by Ruth Gordon, in a shabby wooden trailer near the beach in Southern California, has Hollywood stars in her eyes. And when Raymond Swan (Christopher Plummer), head of The Swan Studio comes calling, Daisy jumps at the chance to be a movie star.

She leaves her mom and lets Swan remake her into America's ideal of a teenage girl. In effect, Swan Studio is Daisy's image maker. Even though surrounded by cold-blooded snakes in the movie business, Daisy is such a brat that she doesn't elicit much sympathy from me. But then I found little interest in any of the characters.

With the exception of Daisy's mom, the characters lack depth of emotion. Maybe that's the point ... Hollywood is filled with emotionally empty people. They're all image, no substance.

Set in the 1930s, the film has visuals that look straight out of the 1960s, especially relative to hairstyles and costumes. The musical numbers, though well executed, trend toward upbeat, bubble gum optimism, which is inconsistent with the film's overall thematic cynicism. I know what they're driving at with these musical numbers. But the abrupt tonal shift is jarring.

Perhaps the worst element of this film is Natalie Wood's performance. She seriously overacts. It's a performance not unlike that of Patty Duke, in "Valley Of The Dolls" (1967).

"Inside Daisy Clover" is filmed in color. It would have been more realistic had it been filmed in 1930s B&W. And the cinematography projects an annoying wide screen image.

The only thing I liked about this film is the presence of the always interesting, and unique, Ruth Gordon. Otherwise, this film is forgettable.

This film seems way ahead of it's time, made in 1965 it's one of the first to show a darker side of Tinsel Town. Natalie Wood plays a tomboy who's plucked from obscurity and becomes a teen singing star. Her character is almost immediately jaded by the experience, manipulated by a studio head and a dubious male heartthrob, played by a stunning looking Robert Redford. Ruth Gordon once again stands out as the teen stars' mother. Christopher Plummer is excellent as the smooth studio head with Roddy McDowall as his cold assistant. Katharine Bard plays Plummers' wife, and her character is fascinating. She seems to float and flow when she moves and her character sums up the film's overall feel. Distant, detached and alien yet seething with anger and disappointment.

The problem with the film is that it's very dark in tone. That is to say the slick big budget production is overshadowed by a strange menace, highlighting the fact that the studio system was basically a people factory, uncaring and cannibalistic. Audiences at the time must have been very confused, expecting a light, breezy musical. Instead it's a realistic yet stylized downer, reminiscent of Valley of the Dolls, which was yet to come. There's very little genuine romance, sentiment or humor, just a steady flow of odd scenes.

This is one of those movies that many have never heard of, it remains obscure despite it's almost epic appeal. It's certainly worth a look, but just try to nail it down to any specific category.

This movie often seems surrealistic, sometimes comic, sometimes despairing and it has musical numbers which come from another dimension entirely--they are a mix of Busby Berkeley and 1960s design. The film seems like an eccentric comedy at first with 15 year-old tomboy Daisy (Natalie Wood) and her wacky mother (Ruth Gordon) both competing over who can chew scenery faster. Suddenly, she's plucked by sinister studio head Christopher Plummer and turned into a star. The studios of the time were certainly often sinister, but I found the dispatch of Ma Clover to the mental institution a bit of a stretch. The film has other implausible moments plus a tone of anachronism as the songs, by Andre and Dory Previn, are 1960s Broadway in style. Many scenes of loneliness and isolation--a strangely deserted Santa Monica pier,an empty desert motel, a studio that always seems empty, even the sound stages seem empty. You rarely see the bustle you expect in a film set at a studio or in Hollywood. This is an odd, fascinating, 1/2 successful film.