Director
Robert Mulligan ("To Kill A Mockingbird"), who passed away in 2008, was one of the great directors of the 1960s. This is another one of his achivements, an adaptation of a novel by
Gavin Lambert (former film critic for Sight and Sound and the Guardian, and who often explored Hollywood themes in his novels). This story, set in 1936, makes a powerful statement about the facade of stardom and imagery; the "Inside" of the title refers the inner soul of teenage Daisy Clover, miserable and unhappy before famous, and even worse off as a major celebrity.
The Passionate Moviegover in a recent post compared this film to two other movies:
A Star is Born and
The Legend of Lylah Clare.
(
Read the review here)
Another film that this reminded me of is the brilliant cautionary tale,
A Face in the Crowd, and the Lonesome Rhodes character. Though they are both manufactured celebrities, Daisy doesn't crave the power and limelight like Lonesome; rather, she desperately wants to get out, even sticking her head in an oven in one scene.
This film that gets darker and more depressing as it progresses (Warning: There may be some spoilers in the rest of this review)
One of the songs that Daisy sings in the film, "The Circus Is A Wacky World", seems to sum up the movie and it's message pretty good.
I was surprised that the film was even released by Warner Brothers, since it's seems to be very anti-studio. It wasn't a major hit upon initial release, despite the fact that this was one of the first films to feature dapper
Robert Redford, who plays movie star hearthrob Wade Lewis.
Also excellent are
Ruth Gordon as Daisy's mother figure, and
Christopher Plummer, who is good as Mephisto-esque studio head Raymond Swan of Swan Studios, a character completely the opposite of Captain Von Trapp from earlier in the year. He had a such a good year that year, I don't know why he wasn't nominated for at least Best Supporting Actor for either film. But no one can argue that last year, 2009, was also one of his best years ever, with roles in
Up, 9, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and his Oscar nominated role as Leo Tolstoy in
The Last Station.
Resembling "Anybodys" from
West Side Story (ironically),
Natalie Wood's character of Daisy is a chain smoking, trash talking, school-skipping tomboy, who lives in a trailer with her mother figure guardian on the fictitious Angel Beach Pier (which was filmed on the famous Santa Monica Pier).
Gordon's wisecracking mother reminded me a little of her character in
Where's Poppa? In one scene, the superstitious woman pulls an Ace from her deck of cards and immediately flees to the nearest Card Reader to find out if she will die. Where the rest of her family is - and where they get their money - remains sort of a mystery to us for awhile.
I loved the scenery in these opening scenes. Reminded me of Santa Monica Pier and Venice beach boardwalk, where I have been and enjoyed.
In Daisy's spare time, she goes to the nearest record-your-own-voice machine and burns records (I almost said "burns CDs") of her singing tunes.
She mails the records to Hollywood studios, including the fictitious Swan Studios, hoping to get noticed.
Daisy plays the records she recorded in in the 25-cent record booth.
As an autograph collector myself, I got a kick out of this scene, where we see Daisy in a boardwalk booth selling black-and-white 8 x 10s, as well as conning people into believing she can get them autographed by the actual stars.
This karma-like scene is an interesting one: she's selling something phony to people, which is what Swan does with her image later on.
A woman asks if her "Myrna Loy" autograph came in. Daisy quickly runs to the back and fakes the signature, like she does for all of them.
Here, she gives the "autographed photo" of Myrna Loy to the gullible customer. (Caution: if you ever stumble upon any autographed photos of celebrities in a flea market, make sure you check it out with an autograph expert or compare the signature to a real one.)
One of her voice recordings lands in the hands of Swan Studios, and, amazingly, she is called for an interview with studio boss Swan (Plummer), who wants to make her into the next big thing in pictures. Daisy in intrigued, and is encouraged by her long-lost sister. As part of the deal, Swan forces her to lie about her homelife and family, and has her mother committed to an institution. A outrageous promotional newsreel is produced (which I thought was a brilliant comical moment--if this were a comedy film, that is). The newsreel is complete distortion of her life and upbringing in an attempt to sell her to the public. It shows her faux "family heritage" and introduces us to a number of her ancestors who were famous singers. The newsreel ends with a movie premiere of one of her films, and we see real clips of Clark Gable and even Mickey Rooney "showing up" for her film.
Her only friend is fellow movie star Wade Lewis (Redford). The film never specifies Wade's age, but he was clearly an adult movie star to me (Note: I believe the original character from the book was also a teen star the same age as Daisy) I found this Wade Lewis character to be sleazy; he's always trying to get teenage Daisy drunk. (Later we discover Wade likes boys too.) And I thought Wood, almost 30, was too old to play a 15 year old. But I was able to suspend my disbelief for most of the film. She didn't really look like a teen, but then again, Deanna Durbin looked much older than her years.
She marries Wade Lewis (and is abandoned by him, naturally), and is emotionally tormented for the remainder of the film. Her fame increases, and Swan becomes more sinister and controlling.
Former child star
Roddy McDowall has a small part as Swan's emotionless assistant. (Sadly, we don't see enough of him; his screentime in this two-hour movie is roughly 1 minute and 30 seconds.)
Though the casting of former child-stars McDowall and Wood seem like a good idea for this subject matter, the biggest criticism I have of this film is that I didn't feel like I really knew the character of Daisy to sympathize with her. (I agree with Scott Marks' review -
read here.) I really, really wanted to sympathize with her, but I was not convinced that she truly loved singing. Early on, she didn't seem desperate to make it into show business - just desperate to get out, anywhere. She spent most of her pre-fame days selling movie star photos, but seemed so bored. And we don't really get a feel for what she thought Hollywood would be like.
So I didn't feel we got deep enough "inside" Daisy Clover.
In this film, the character of Daisy is on that same superstar level as my favorite teen movie stars of the golden age, who are all still living:
Deanna Durbin, Shirley Temple, Jackie Cooper, and Mickey Rooney. I thought about their subsequent careers and struggles. And wondered how much of Daisy's story they experienced.
Once the film ended, I felt sorry for Daisy. I felt it was just a matter of time before this character tries to kill herself.
