Daisy Kenyon is a 1947 American romantic-drama film by 20th Century Fox starring Joan Crawford, Henry Fonda, and Dana Andrews in a story about a post-World War II romantic triangle.
Having opened to restrained reception, Daisy Kenyon has seen reappraisal, and now enjoys a minor cult following for its realistic treatment of a typically melodramatic plot.
[3] Daisy Kenyon is a Manhattan commercial artist having an affair with an arrogant, overbearing and successful lawyer named Dan O'Mara, who is married and has two children.
Daisy is appalled to learn that Dan gave up the children to obtain his divorce and admits that she stopped loving him a long time ago.
Newspaper reporters Walter Winchell, Leonard Lyons, and Damon Runyon, along with actor John Garfield, make cameo appearances in the film.
The Motion Picture Production Code administrators, with whom Preminger often sparred, took issue with the screenplay's "lack of regard for the sanctity of marriage."
The studio was advised to avoid referencing explicit sexual intercourse, and to emphasize the moral wrongness of the relationship between the characters of Daisy and Dan.
[9] Variety's review stated that the central "triangle, in which Dana Andrews and Henry Fonda fight it out for the love of Joan Crawford, is basically a shallow lending-library affair, but it's made to seem important by the magnetic trio's slick-smart backgrounds - plus, of course, excellent direction, sophisticated dialog, solid supporting cast, and other flashy production values.
"[10] T. M. P. in The New York Times noted, "Miss Crawford is, of course, an old hand at being an emotionally confused and frustrated woman, and she plays the role with easy competence.
"[citation needed] Otis L. Guernsey, Jr. in the New York Herald Tribune commented, "Preminger accomplishes no mean feat in guiding these people in and out among the interweavings of their own complexes, and he does wonders in varying the action of similar scenes.
"[11] Initial dismissal of Daisy Kenyon has given way to some critical reappraisal in recent years; it has earned a cult following, with some calling it a misunderstood masterpiece and one of Preminger's best films.
[3][9] Mike D'Angelo, giving the film a grade of 99 out of a possible 100 points, hailed Kenyon as "the most bluntly realistic romantic melodrama I've ever seen.
Dan, partly in an attempt to impress Daisy, takes a pro-bono case for a Japanese American war veteran whose land was confiscated while he was away fighting.