Gangsters of love

Daisy Kenyon 1947 Twentieth Century Fox (99 minutes) produced and directed by Otto Preminger; cinematography, Leon Shamroy; set decoration by Thomas Little and Walter M. Scott; edited by Louis Loeffler; screenplay by David Hertz, based on the novel by Elizabeth Janeway.

This is a love triangle tale told as a detective story, with beautifully stylized mis-en-scène, camera work and lighting, a keen eye for detail, and a seasoning of social issues. 

These issues include extramarital sex, child abuse, and the psychological injuries of soldiers coming home from war. The movie also comments on the racist treatment of American-born and -raised Nisei Japanese, a number of whom served with distinction in Europe.

The plot is straightforward. Daniel O’Mara (Dana Andrews) is a bright, ambitious lawyer from a hardscrabble background who married into the family of prominent Manhattan attorneys and became a partner in the family firm.

His skills as a litigator and lobbyist carry the firm. He patronizes his law partner father-in-law—‘Sugarplum,’ ‘Dew Drop,’ or ‘Walking Dead’ Coverly (Nicholas Joy), the apparent lightweight heir to a legal legend father—as well as his neurotic Upper East Side society wife, Lucille (Ruth Warrick).

Played by the low-key Andrews, the star of Otto Preminger’s 1944 classic Laura and William Wyler’s Oscar-sweeping The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), O’Mara at first comes off as a confident, entitled alpha-type used to getting his way.

The O’Mara family dynamic is complex. O’Mara’s 13- and 11-year old daughters, Rosamund (Peggy Ann Garner) and Marie (Connie Marshall), call him ‘Dan’ rather than ‘Dad.’ They take their cues from him in gaming their emotionally insecure mother. Rosamund challenges her mother for Dan’s affection; Lucille takes out her frustration at being patronized by Dan and outplayed by the girls by physically abusing Marie.

Dana Andrews, Peggy Ann Garner, Conniie Marshall, Nicholas Joy and Ruth Warrick in Daisy Kenyon. 

Daisy Kenyon (Joan Crawford) is the ‘other woman.’ Kenyon, O’Mara’s long-time mistress, is a professional illustrator who lives and works in a dream Greenwich Village walkup apartment of yesteryear—the more dreamlike for being on a West 12th Street corner created on a Hollywood studio lot.

Despite their history, her feelings for O’Mara and everything he tells her, Kenyon knows that he will never divorce his wife and leave his comfortable circumstances to be with her. He has too good a set-up as things are.

Kenyon has been seeing Peter Lapham (Henry Fonda), whom she met socially. Lapham, an Army master sergeant, is a Yankee hull designer from Cape Cod who joined the Army after his wife’s death in an automobile accident at the beginning of the war. He was affected by his war experience in Europe, wounded twice, and stayed in the service in Germany after the war, depressive and still not over his wife’s death.

Kenyon feels that she must get her life on track by breaking up finally with her charming, attractive lover who is never going to leave his wife and family to be with her, and making a relationship with a partner who will, such as the Christopher Marlowe-quoting, ‘nice but a little unstable’ Lapham.

She also appears to have a close relationship with Mary Angelus (Martha Stewart), a fashion model with whom she works. Angelus is lovely in black and white and gets a lot more screen time than usual bit-part characters. This has suggested to some critics that Preminger meant to intimate Kenyon’s ambiguous sexual orientation, at a time when the movie industry’s morals code put the topic strictly off limits.

(Preminger was among the first Hollywood directors to test the limits of industry self-censorship which had been rigorously enforced since 1934.)

Kenyon and the audience can see that Lapham has unresolved psychological problems—a ‘project’ for her. His directness and intensity appeal to her, not to mention Fonda’s distinctive open, earnest face. The actor conveys his character’s subtle turn of mind through a wry smile similar to that on the sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon’s Voltaire.

Lapham knows that he needs to come to terms with the loss of his wife and his war experiences and start his life over in a stable relationship with a partner.

O’Mara’s problem—and the main story line—is that his ideal life, which includes a perfect wife and family, a loving mistress, and successful, high-powered career, comes apart at the seams when each begins to tug him in a different direction and looks less than ‘perfect,’ ‘loving,’ and ‘successful.’

These characterizations hint at the outcome. The scenes develop in long takes which invite viewers in rather than telegraph pat judgments. The threat of violence lies just beneath the veneer of civility; at times, this civility has an edge. This gives the story dramatic tension and lends to the film noir atmosphere, but there are no guns or saps; nor are there clear good guys or bad guys. Preminger does not tip his hand as to how the story will end until the final moment.

By placing Crawford between these two strong, understated male leads, Preminger tones down the operatic, sometimes freakish affectations her performances take on with lesser lights and uses her iconic star quality to full effect: she is a thorough professional and a great subject to shoot. It is fun to watch these three actors work together.

Among the period and place details are O’Mara’s exchanges with overworked postwar New York cabbies in beat-up prewar cabs (no new civilian models were built during the war). The Nisei reference comes when O’Mara decides to represent pro bono a decorated Nisei soldier whose California farm was ‘legally stolen’ from him while his family was interned and he was serving in Italy.

Also, visit to a studio mock-up of Manhattan’s storied Stork Club includes cameos of radio star and gossip columnist Walter Winchell and New York Post columnist Leonard Lyons. Broadway boulevardier writer Damon Runyon and actor John Garfield are sitting at the bar in the background.