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Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with today’s installment of A Movie A Day.
[For those now joining us, A Movie A Day is my attempt at filling in gaps in my film knowledge. My DVD collection is thousands strong, many of them films I haven’t seen yet, but picked up as I scoured used DVD stores. Each day I’ll pull a previously unseen film from my collection or from my DVR and discuss it here. Each movie will have some sort of connection to the one before it, be it cast or crew member.]
Today we follow both Henry Fonda and Dana Andrews back 18 years from yesterday’s AMAD Battle of the Bulge to today’s DAISY KENYON. Andrews and Fonda play two points of a love triangle, the third point being Joan Crawford as the title character.
I don’t know what I expected when I started this movie… maybe a more Noiry movie since it’s under the “Fox Noir” banner. There’s no real crime here and you’d be hard pressed to put Joan Crawford’s character in a classic femme fatale mold. The only thing noir about this film at all is the great black and white photography by Leon Shamroy (THE KING AND I, PLANET OF THE APES).
Hell, even the description on the back of the DVD calls it a melodrama and boy it sure is. I don’t know if I was just tired or in the wrong mood, but I found this flick to be Dull (with a capital D).
The performances weren’t bad, but there’s nobody to like in this movie and nobody mean or shitty enough to like hating.
Basically Dana Andrews is an easy going married man having a continuing affair with Crawford because his wife Lucille (Ruth Warrick) is pretty much a bitch who hits their kids whom he adores and they, in turn, adore him. He’s not willing to leave his family life, despite the love he feels for Crawford and that opens the door for serviceman Henry Fonda.
Fonda’s the opposite of Andrews. His love for Kenyon is not hidden behind a politician’s smile, it comes with no strings attached. He’s willing to marry her, to give his life to her, after only days of knowing her, which is incredibly appealing to the lady.
Of course they get married and when Andrews’ happy life goes into the shitter he turns, as he always has, to Daisy. But this time she can’t take him in, shelter him from his storm, and he ends up swirling down the vortex.
All three are really good in the film, but Fonda’s too one note and too easy to let things happen as they happen when Andrews pushes hard to win Daisy back. Andrews makes some really bad decisions that feel selfish even when they’re not just because he seems to throw everything good in his life away for nothing, including his little girls.
Crawford makes out the best of the three as she’s genuinely torn between her love of two men. This love is different for each person. For Andrews it’s a raw love, the love of something she knows she can never get fully. For Fonda her love is less passionate, but more real.
Final Thoughts: It’s a story we’ve seen before and this telling won’t set your pants on fire, despite some nice cinematography, some solid direction by Otto Preminger. I wasn’t impressed with this one, sadly.
The schedule for the next few days is:
Tuesday, September 30th: LAURA (1944)
Wednesday, October 1st – Friday, October 31st: H-MAD! Horror Movie A Day! Check out the list here!
Tomorrow’s our last regular AMAD before the randomized All Horror October Movie A Day kicks in! We follow Preminger over to LAURA, a movie that promises to make more of an impression on me than today’s did.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
Previous Movies:
June 2nd: Harper
June 3rd: The Drowning Pool
June 4th: Papillon
June 5th: Gun Crazy
June 6th: Never So Few
June 7th: A Hole In The Head
June 8th: Some Came Running
June 9th: Rio Bravo
June 10th: Point Blank
June 11th: Pocket Money
June 12th: Cool Hand Luke
June 13th: The Asphalt Jungle
June 14th: Clash By Night
June 15th: Scarlet Street
June 16th: Killer Bait (aka Too Late For Tears)
June 17th: Robinson Crusoe On Mars
June 18th: City For Conquest
June 19th: San Quentin
June 20th: 42nd Street
June 21st: Dames
June 22nd: Gold Diggers of 1935
June 23rd: Murder, My Sweet
June 24th: Born To Kill
June 25th: The Sound of Music
June 26th: Torn Curtain
June 27th: The Left Handed Gun
June 28th: Caligula
June 29th: The Elephant Man
June 30th: The Good Father
July 1st: Shock Treatment
July 2nd: Flashback
July 3rd: Klute
July 4th: On Golden Pond
July 5th: The Cowboys
July 6th: The Alamo
July 7th: Sands of Iwo Jima
July 8th: Wake of the Red Witch
July 9th: D.O.A.
July 10th: Shadow of A Doubt
July 11th: The Matchmaker
July 12th: The Black Hole
July 13th: Vengeance Is Mine
July 14th: Strange Invaders
July 15th: Sleuth
July 16th: Frenzy
July 17th: Kingdom of Heaven: The Director’s Cut
July 18th: Cadillac Man
July 19th: The Sure Thing
July 20th: Moving Violations
July 21st: Meatballs
July 22nd: Cast a Giant Shadow
July 23rd: Out of the Past
July 24th: The Big Steal
July 25th: Where Danger Lives
July 26th: Crossfire
July 27th: Ricco, The Mean Machine
July 28th: In Harm’s Way
July 29th: Firecreek
July 30th: The Cheyenne Social Club
July 31st: The Man Who Knew Too Much
August 1st: The Spirit of St. Louis
August 2nd: Von Ryan’s Express
August 3rd: Can-Can
August 4th: Desperate Characters
August 5th: The Possession of Joel Delaney
August 6th: Quackser Fortune Has A Cousin In The Bronx
August 7th: Start the Revolution Without Me
August 8th: Hell Is A City
August 9th: The Pied Piper
August 10th: Partners
August 11th: Barry Lyndon
August 12th: The Skull
August 13th: The Hellfire Club
August 14th: Blood of the Vampire
August 15th: Terror of the Tongs
August 16th: Pirates of Blood River
August 17th: The Devil-Ship Pirates
August 18th: Jess Franco’s Count Dracula
August 19th: Dracula A.D. 1972
August 20th: The Stranglers of Bombay
August 21st: Man, Woman & Child
August 22nd: The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane
August 23rd: The Young Philadelphians
August 24th: The Rack
August 25th: Until They Sail
August 26th: Somebody Up There Likes Me
August 27th: The Set-Up
August 28th: The Devil & Daniel Webster
August 29th: Cat People
August 30th: The Curse of the Cat People
August 31st: The 7th Victim
September 1st: The Ghost Ship
September 2nd: Isle of the Dead
September 3rd: Bedlam
September 4th: Black Sabbath
September 5th: Black Sunday
September 6th: Twitch of the Death Nerve
September 7th: Tragic Ceremony
September 8th: Lisa & The Devil
September 9th: Baron Blood
September 10th: A Shot In The Dark
September 11th: The Pink Panther
September 12th: The Return of the Pink Panther
September 13th: The Pink Panther Strikes Again
September 14th: Revenge of the Pink Panther
September 15th: Trail of the Pink Panther
September 16th: The Real Glory
September 17th: The Winning of Barbara Worth
September 18th: The Cowboy and the Lady
September 19th: Dakota
September 20th: Red River
September 21st: Terminal Station
September 22nd: The Search
September 23rd: Act of Violence
September 24th: Houdini
September 25th: Money From Home
September 26th: Papa’s Delicate Condition
September 27th: Dillinger
September 28th: Battle of the Bulge
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