This score is a close second for my favorite of Previn's works.
In 1965, "Inside Daisy Clover" hit the screens. Critics were harsh. Audiences stayed away. Subject matter was considered a bit much given the homosexuality of one of its characters.
But, it had a small audience, and that audience has grown substantially over the decades. Natalie Wood is quite effective, Ruth Gordon gives an Oscar-nominated performance, and Robert Redford (a then up-and-coming actor) portrays a super-handsome, super popular and secretly gay movie star who marries Daisy.
A 12-track album was released in both mono and stereo on Warner Brothers Records. Happily, the entire score has been released, brilliantly, in its entirety by Film Score Monthly. It's another prize in my collection. The music is superb, both the dramatic underscoring, which is extensive, and the original musical numbers.
This is the main title to the score
And this is the sequence featuring one of my favorite cues in the score (volume adjustment required):
Why am I hearing echos of Jerry's STUDS LONIGAN and THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER in the Main Title for this score? STUDS an LIST came 6 and 3 years earlier. Is it just me?
Why am I hearing echos of Jerry's STUDS LONIGAN and THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER in the Main Title for this score? STUDS an LIST came 6 and 3 years earlier. Is it just me?
I don't hear echoes of "Studs Lonigan". I do hear a melancholic similarity in tempo, but the music is completely different.
I'm not sure Natalie Wood was the right choice for Daisy Clover. She's too old, and hardly the naïve waif she's meant to be. It might have worked with Liza Minelli in the title role. Then cast Judy Garland in the Ruth Gordon role, and Brock Peters in the Roddy McDowell role. That could have been some movie!
