Inside Daisy Clover is a 1965 American drama film produced by Alan J. Pakula and directed by Robert Mulligan, adapted by screenwriter Gavin Lambert from his own 1963 novel of the same name. It stars Natalie Wood, Christopher Plummer, Robert Redford, Roddy McDowall, Ruth Gordon, and Katharine Bard. It was Wood's second film with Mulligan, after Love with the Proper Stranger.
In 1935 California, Daisy Clover (Wood) is a 15-year-old tomboy living with her eccentric mother (Gordon) in a ramshackle trailer alongside the boardwalk in Angel Beach. One day Daisy gets the opportunity to become a big movie star thanks to studio mogul Raymond "Ray" Swan (Plummer), but subsequently finds herself having to deal with Swan's controlling demands along with the cruelties and exploitation of Hollywood. She also starts a romance with fellow film star Wade Lewis (Redford), which helps her to cope for a time.
Inside Daisy Clover provides examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: At the beginning, Milton tries several times to touch and kiss Daisy, and she rejects his advances.
- Adaptational Sexuality: Wade Lewis is gay in the novel. He is bisexual in the film.
- Appliance Defenestration: A variant happens when Wade throws his radio overboard after both he and Daisy hear a report of the event Daisy was supposed to attend, where her absence is noticed.
- Barefoot Poverty: Daisy goes barefoot most of the time in her initial life in poverty on Angel Beach.
- Book Ends: Daisy starts and ends the film saying "I won't let it go to my head. I'm still the same happy, adjusted, polite young lady. I'll bet my simple, healthy instincts against yours any day!"
- Bridal Carry: As he talks to a sleepy Daisy about Wade and her divorce, Swan lifts her this way and kisses her.
- Bungled Suicide: Towards the end, not wanting to return making a film for Swan, Daisy attempts suicide by opening the gas in her kitchen. People keep ringing at her door, she stops to go open every time, then it's the phone. She then tries to light a burner (to make the gas explode) and only manages to burn her hand. After that, she abandons her suicidal thoughts, puts the gas on again along with a burner and happily lets the house blow up instead.
- Control Freak: Raymond Swan basically wants total control over the life and career of Daisy, which she deeply resents. It includes drastic Contractual Purity, faking her past to sell her as "America's Little Valentine", and he even wants to prevent her from seeing her mother again (which he later recedes on). He also doesn't want Wade Lewis to ruin it via his romance with Daisy.
- Cool Boat: Wade mainly lives on his boat and takes Daisy on it during their romance.
- Cool Shades: Wade sports sunglasses sometimes, which serves to make him look cooler.
- Happily Failed Suicide: Daisy fails to commit suicide with gas in the house where Swan had her late mother live once she became an actress, and probably decides it's just better to live and happily blows up the house instead.
- Happy Circus Music: The music number called "The Circus Is A Wacky World" Daisy has to perform for a film. Very much Soundtrack Dissonance since she's increasingly unhappy working for Swan and ends up freaking out in a violent nervous breakdown after her mother's death when having to perform ADR for it afterwards.
- Horrible Hollywood: The movie industry is depicted as a controlling, exploitative machine that runs roughshod over the lives of its stars.
- Houseboat Hero: Wade seemingly lives on his boat (it's the only kind of "home" he's seen in).
- Jailbait Taboo: Daisy is only 15/16, and Swan threatens to have the adult Wade arrested for romancing her. He even words out the "jailbait" part. Which doesn't prevent Swan himself from starting an affair with Daisy later on.
- Let the Past Burn: At the end, Daisy decides to blow up the house Ray Swan had her mother live in, likely signifying she's done with him. There's some fire after the explosion.
- Lohengrin and Mendelssohn: The Bridal Chorus of Lohengrin is played when Daisy is brought to the altar to marry Wade.
- Looping Lines: Daisy has to do that In-Universe for her circus song sequence, but she has a nervous breakdown in the middle of it and starts screaming (her mother dying not long before doesn't help).
- Lower-Class Lout: Daisy can be as "lower class" in her manners as they come, and she admits that people who might find her "sophisticated" only see it skin deep.
- Malicious Misnaming: After Raymond Swan tells Daisy she can't see her mother again, she rushes outside and ragingly writes a graffiti on a wall that says "Raymond Swine is a mother killer".
- Modesty Bedsheet: When Daisy wakes up after sleeping on Wade's boat, there's only her bedsheet covering her.
- No Communities Were Harmed: "Angel Beach" doesn't exist. Rather, it was obviously filmed at the pier of Santa Monica.
- One-Person Birthday Party: Not even a party per se. The film opens on Daisy's 15th birthday, and she wishes it to herself, sitting alone behind her shack.
- Opening Monologue: By Daisy:"The 24th of August, 1936; Angel Beach California, USA, the world, the universe; Angel Beach. Happy birthday Daisy Clover. I'm 15 today, but I won't let it go to my head. I'm still the same happy, adjusted, polite young lady. People say I'm quite sophisticated for my age. That's only skin deep. Underneath the veneer, I'll bet my simple, healthy instincts against yours any day!"
- Pimped-Out Dress: Daisy gets to wear quite a few of them as film costumes or for movie premieres. Edith Head designed them in Real Life.
- Rags to Riches: Daisy goes from living in a ramshackle trailer to being a star.
- Romance-Inducing Smudge: Wade tenderly cleans Daisy's face of her makeup a bit before kissing her when she's doing a film dressed as a doll.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Daisy's mother locks herself in the ramshackle trailer when producer Raymond Swan comes to make an offer to Daisy. There's black smoke coming out of it after a while, and Daisy rushes to it, only to see her mother casually get out and talk as if nothing was happening. She could have suffocated in there.
- Sibling Rivalry: At the beginning, Daisy writes a graffiti on the back wall of her shack that reads "My sister Gloria is a pile of garbage".
- Spiteful Spit: At the beginning, after writing the graffiti insulting her sister, Daisy spits on it.
- Stock Footage: When Daisy's newest film premieres, footage of Real Life black and white newsreels of movie premieres that Clark Gable, John Barrymore, Humphrey Bogart, Myrna Loy, Sonja Henie and Carole Lombard attended are used.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Daisy blows up her house with gas and a burner at the end.
- Tomboy: Daisy cuts her hair short, wears stereotypically male clothes and doesn't behave the least bit "girly".
- Trademark Favorite Food: Daisy loves sweet Sherry wines.
- You Can't Go Home Again: A "You can't see your mother again" situation. Swan tells this to Daisy, in order to "protect" her career from any sort of stain it could have, after having her lie about her mother being dead. She's predictably not happy with this.
