Daisy Miller ** (1974, Cybill Shepherd, Barry Brown, Cloris Leachman, Mildred Natwick, Eileen Brennan) – Classic Movie Review 6913

Cybill Shepherd stars as the Henry James heroine Daisy Miller in producer-director Peter Bogdanovich’s classy and sumptuous period romantic comedy drama of manners. If it has its charms, certainly visually, it can nevertheless still seem like a chilly and emotionally unengaging 1974 historical pageant, and it is never the romantic classic it set out to be.

[Spoiler alert] Daisy Miller is an innocent American who comes to late-19th-century Europe, and falls in love with Frederick Winterbourne (Barry Brown) but dies of a fever. Some fault lies with the casting, though Cloris Leachman (as Mrs Ezra B. Miller), Mildred Natwick (as Mrs Costello) and Eileen Brennan (Mrs Walker) are remarkable, while Shepherd’s performance is better than perhaps was expected.

With its fine, beautifully crafted Technicolor cinematography (Alberto Spagnoli), art direction (Ferdinando Scarfiotti) and screenplay (Frederic Raphael) based on the novel by Henry James, Daisy Miller is overall a reasonably worthwhile film that really does capture the spirit of James.

It is made on book-a-trip-now-type Italian locations.

Also in the cast are Duilio Del Prete, Nicholas Jones, Albert Messmer and George Morfogen.

Daisy Miller is directed by Peter Bogdanovich, runs 91 minutes, is a production of Copa del Oro and Directors Company, is released by Paramount, is written by Frederic Raphael, is shot by Alberto Spagnoli, is produced by Peter Bogdanovich, and designed by Ferdinando Scarfiotti.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6913

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