Sunday 31 August 2014

Daisy Miller (1974 Peter Bogdanovich)

The film that turned the tide against PB is a comedy of manners which becomes a tragedy, not just in itself but because star Barry Brown was only a few years away from suicide.

Cybill Shepherd is excellent - long takes are noteworthy - as chattering flirt who meets Brown in Vevey, and lures him to Rome. Mildred Natwick is his no-nonsense mother, Cloris Leachman is her's, with Eileen Brennan as a spiteful friend.

In the introduction to the film PB describes how he had set up the funeral scene, then couldn't film it.

Verna Fields cut it, Alberto Spagnoli shot it, and Frederic Raphael has adapted the Henry James novel.

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