Inside Daisy Clover (1965)

I am a self admitted Natalie Wood fan and it was a small ambition of mine to see this movie in spite of the mixed reviews. I can see now why it has mixed reviews. You see, i can't decide whether it was good or bad either....

For me the good parts were Robert Redford as Wade Lewis, i defy you not love him just a little bit. Christopher Plummer as Raymond Swan and Ruth Gordon as Daisy's mother. I also really liked the ending.
The bad parts were: The film has pacing problems and a less than great script. The acting is melodramatic at times and Natalie Wood was noticeably too old to play the 15 year old Daisy (she was about 26 at the time.)

I enjoyed the film in spite of the huge flaws. But in some scenes i simply couldn't get past the melodrama. Wood was one of those stars where if she was good she was REALLY good, such as in Splendor In the Grass, Rebel without a Cause, West Side Story and Sex and The single girl (which was very funny IMO). But in this she came off a bit try hardish. Not to say she didn't have her moments. in the scenes where she hardly had to say anything, where the clunky dialogue didn't affect her, she shone and stole the scene. It was the eyes, they conveyed a lot of emotion. I think her best moment in this movie was a her breakdown scene, i think she had a flare for breakdown scenes.

I love Robert Redford and he was good with what he was given to work with, but his scenes aren't all that flash, but i can tell he tried and he was the second best supporting character (the 1st being Mrs Clover).

The movie takes place in the 30's and revolves around Daisy's whirlwind journey into stardom. The story is okay. But the fact we hardly see Daisy doing any work (except about 3-4 song and dances) takes it's toll on the plot. Maybe they could've added a scene or two to show us she actually does something. Daisy also seems a little erratic (even for a teenage girl), which makes her seem kind of crazy and it is hard to like her at first. But as the movie goes on it's easier and we really admire her by the end of the movie.

It is good the film has a sense of humour. Ruth Gordon injects some of this in her first scene where she  reports her husband missing, she admits he'd been gone for seven years, the cop asks her why it took her so long to report it and she answers: "well i only started to miss him this morning."

Overall i think it had more good in it than bad but it takes a while to pay off, i strongly recommend though that you stay watching it until the end. Because the ending is pretty cool.

"You're as sound as a roach" Raymond Swan (Christopher Plummer), Inside Daisy Clover.

Forgotten film stars

There are many famous screen legends who helped create the genres and style of today whom we all remember, but there are some people who barely come up in conversation. this list is of the old pioneers and all the others in between.

Wallace Reid
Now lets see... he died young (31), he had a fairly good looking face and he made good movies. Why wasn't he remembered? He was obviously very popular, just look at the quote by famed director Cecil B Demille"
"The terrible shock of his death shattered the publics image of him, and almost shattered Hollywood"
Wallace was described by his colleagues as a decent man who had no ego, had he lived he could have made talkies and been a big star. The song 'only the good die young' may describe him best. He was in The Birth Of A nation and The Affairs of Anatol (which co-starred Gloria Swanson), maybe he isn't as remembered because he died in 1923, he wasn't 'this close' to talkies, unlike Valentino, He was in a train crash and needed morphine to work, he became hooked an ultimately his addiction led to his death in the arms of his wife Dorothy Davenport in a sanitarium.

Miriam Cooper 
standing at only 4'10 the petite young woman was featured in many popular films, one of which was Birth of  nation (personally i hate that movie because no-one should have to watch a 3+hour silent) and Intolerance, considered one of the best silent dramas ever. She married Raoul Walsh in 1916 and adopted 2 boys, they divorced in 1926. She died in 1976 aged 84 (going on 85).

Busby Berkley
Before Busby Berkley the movie musical was really just a filmed stage musical, but when Busby came on the scene suddenly there were overhead shots and spinning and all those other camera shots we take for granted nowadays. Berkley was the man behind such classic musicals as Take Me Out To The Ball Game and For Me and My Gal (the first pairing of Judy Garland and Gene Kelly). Perhaps he wasn't the first to use the overhead shot in musicals, but he certainly made it popular, and so modern movie musical camera techniques were born.

Dolph Lundgren
It may be because his name is hard to pronounce, but who here as actually even talked about this guy? Maybe everyone just started to forget about him after Masters of The Universe (a live-action version of He-Man). He's still making movies (the Expendables came out in 2010) but lets face it: his best years are behind him and people really just refer to him as the 80s action guy guy who isn't Stallone. I'll give him this thoug: he is one of the greatest action stars ever.

Lon Chaney
Maybe in some circles he is still popular but lets face the cold hard truth: the silent horror god will always be a (to borrow a line from Singin in the rain) shadow on screen, does he deserve this title? definitely not, he was a talented man, but hey, thats the way it crumbles (cookie-wise).. He may be on some actors lists of inspirations but all in all: he's been forgotten by the big wigs and the current generation. For all those people who think that Gerard Butler is the be all and end all of Phantom of The Opera, i ask you to search up this man.

John Gilbert
Everybody remembers Greta Garbo (how can you not when you have such a catchy name?) But when people say Garbo's lover, it can take a little time to think of Gilbert. He was actually a good, handsome, charismatic actor, but unfortunately the studio didn't really like him. Gilbert drank heavily and died at 36. yet another victim of Hollywood.

It was hard thinking of a line to finish this post with, so i thought very hard and i decided to end this post with a quote by an actor.

"My whole career has been devoted to keeping people from knowing me" Lon Chaney, Man of a thousand faces and master of early screen make up techniques.