#gavin lambert

Gavin Lambert (deceased)

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Gay

DOB: 23 July 1924  

RIP: 17 July 2005

Ethnicity: White - British

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977). A disturbed, institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.

Sons and Lovers (1960). A young man with artistic talent who lives in a close-knit, English coal-mining town during the early 20th Century finds himself inhibited by his emotionally manipulative, domineering mother.

Situated somewhere between A STAR IS BORN (1954) and ALEX IN WONDERLAND (1970), Robert Mulligan’s INSIDE DAISY CLOVER (1965, TCM) draws on the earlier film’s stardom-as hell metaphor while seeming to point to the latter’s anti-embellishment message. But it’s more like the 1970s pictures that turned revolution into a cinematic fetish. It’s a big studio picture about the evils of the big studios. There are moments that work, but a lot that feel empty, and though there were complaints about Warner Bros. cutting 21 minutes before it was released, at 128 minutes it often seems interminable.

In 1936, Daisy Clover (Natalie Wood) dreams of being a movie star, so she sends a recording of herself to a talent contest run by Swan Studios. They immediately bring her in for an extensive screentest before signing her to a long-term contract and starring her in her first film. The cost of fame, however, is dealing with the manipulative studio head (Christopher Plummer) and pretending her mentally unbalanced mother (Ruth Gordon) is dead. She finds some respite when she’s courted by dashing movie star Wade Lewis (Robert Redford), but he deserts her after their marriage because one woman — or man — isn’t enough for him.

Now, nobody’s expecting a Hollywood movie about Hollywood to be a documentary, but Daisy’s career path makes no sense. Neither Judy Garland nor Deanna Durbin, the stars on whom Daisy is purportedly based, were elevated to stardom in their first films. The studio tested them and built up their images through supporting roles, radio appearances, etc. And though Daisy is supposed to be “Little Miss Valentine,” not only does the big production number set to launch her career, in which she sings Andre and Dory Previn’s “You’re Gonna Hear From Me,” make her look every one of Wood’s 27 years at the time, but choreographer Herbert Ross gives her some rather adult, sexual movies. Then again, the musical arrangement doesn’t fit the period at all. It’s more Sinatra in ‘60s Vegas than Judy or Deanna in ‘30s Hollywood. And just to make matters worse, the supposedly 1930s films featuring Daisy are not only shown in widescreen but include an image from D.W. Griffith’s INTOLERANCE (1916) distorted to fit the same format. That’s not just a perversion of cinema history. It’s a crime against the art form.

At least the ‘70s anti-establishment films had a rough texture. Even the most manipulative felt handmade. But Mulligan has made the film with a sleek, almost impersonal style. Charles Lang’s cinematography is all bright, pretty colors, even in nighttime scenes. And the attempts to show Daisy in isolation start feeling calculated, as if the plot weren’t enough to generate sympathy. It’s Hollywood rejecting Hollywood to make Hollywood look cool.

Wood has good moments. There’s a hunger in her screentest that can convince you Daisy wants to be a star. She also excels in a breakdown scene, powerfully staged by Mulligan with her in a soundproof booth trying to loop some lyrics to a musical number. But she has other moments that don’t ring true, including a temper tantrum that looks like something she was told to do. Plummer is saddled with an unplayable character. Writer Gavin Lambert can’t seem to decide if he loves Daisy or just loves the profits she represents. As his assistant, a more important character in the novel, Roddy McDowall has precious little to do, and Bard registers strongly until she has a drunken scene that pushes her into manic overacting. The only standout performances come from Redford and Gordon. His dialog is as overblown and theatrical as some of the other characters’, yet he makes it feel natural to him. He’s a character who revels not just in words but also in the mask of cynicism he projects.  And though he purportedly asked the producers to tone down the implications his character was gay, he buckles his swish more than his swash and has one reaction to the mention of McDowall’s character that suggests more history between them than the film presents. Gordon is a little movie unto herself (and one I’d rather have watched). She doesn’t have much screen time, but she presents a vivid picture of a character out of touch with reality who becomes increasingly withdrawn after being institutionalized. Maybe it’s our image of her as the willful eccentric of ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) and HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971), but it’s almost painful to watch her decay. This was her return to screen acting after 22 years and paved the way for her rise as one the era’s great character stars.