Inside Daisy Clover

In 1936 Santa Monica, Daisy Clover is a tomboy, living with her eccentric mother in a ramshackle trailer. Wishing to become an actress, Daisy submits a recorded song to studio owner Raymond Swan.

Swan puts her under contract for five years and makes arrangements to hide her mother away in a mental institution. Daisy meets and spends time with fellow actor Wade Lewis. Raymond fears that the romance will interrupt Daisy's job. Wade asks Daisy to marry him. She agrees and the ceremony is held at Raymond's house. During the honeymoon, Wade drives off and leaves Daisy in Arizona. When Daisu returns to California, an extremely intoxicated Melora reveals to her that she had an affair with the closet homosexual Wade. Raymond tells Daisy about Wade's orientation, as he did for Melora. Raymond and Daisy begin an affair.

Daisy takes her mother out of the care home and spirits her away to a house on the beach. When her mother unexpectedly dies, Daisy suffers a nervous breakdown. Unable to work, she spends her days at home under the care of a private nurse. Becoming impatient with Daisy's long recovery, Raymond tells her she must finish her contract and pending film. After Raymond and the nurse leave the house, Daisy attempts suicide, only to be foiled by constant interruptions. She ultimately decides to live and leave everything behind. Before leaving, she turns on the oven's gas which causes the house to catch fire and explode.

Upon its release, the film was a box office and critical failure.[2] However, the film later gained a cult following when it was shown on television and released on home video.[3] At the time of the film's release, homosexuality was a highly taboo subject matter within American society, and prior to the 1960s, had been one of the topics that the Hollywood Hays Code had expressly prohibited. Redford reportedly insisted that his character, gay in the original novel, has some interest in women. Likewise the studio, fearful of the potential controversy, insisted that the film only acknowledge the character's bisexuality through a few bits of dialogue.[4] Despite these limitations, the film is generally recognized for one of the early depictions of a gay or bisexual character in American cinema who is not ashamed of his sexuality and does not commit suicide.[4]

Wood's singing voice was dubbed by session singer Jackie Ward with the exception of the introduction to the song You're Gonna Hear from Me (by Dory Previn and André Previn, who composed the score).[5] The song was later recorded by Connie Francis in English for the album Movie Greats Of the 60s (1966) and one year later in Spanish as Ya te hablarán de mi for the Spanish version of the album, Grandes Éxitos del Cine de los Años 60; by Dionne Warwick for the album The Windows of the World (1967); by Scott Walker on his début solo album Scott (1967); and by Barbra Streisand on The Movie Album (2003). Wood's vocal recordings, completed for other songs, were unused and unheard on commercial recordings until the Film Score Monthly was released in April 2009.

• List of American films of 1965

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Inside Daisy Clover.

• Inside Daisy Clover on IMDb
• Inside Daisy Clover at AllMovie
• Inside Daisy Clover at Rotten Tomatoes
• Inside Daisy Clover at the TCM Movie Database