the audience applauded

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Joan Crawford soaper, directed by Otto Preminger, with a familiar plot of Joan being torn between two men (married lawyer Dana Andrews and returning soldier Henry Fonda). Joan made these sorts of love triangle melodramas all the time in the 1930s. Despite the hackneyed romance, this is actually a pretty interesting film. For one thing, it has more of a noirish look than those earlier Joan melodramas. For another, it deals with some pretty adult material for a movie of its time, like child abuse, divorce, and even an easy-to-overlook bit about a civil rights case where a Japanese-American soldier had his farm taken from him while he was fighting in the war. Finally, it's well-acted all around and each of the stars gets some good material to work with. Yeah, Joan's style from this period (shoulder pads, heavy eyebrows, and general masculine femininity) can be a little distracting at times, but Preminger does a good job of making the rest of the picture so attractive you are able to look past that. It's worth a look if you are a fan of the three stars or the director, but it isn't the best any of them have done.

As another poster mentioned, what happened to Tubby the dog? Tubby was a sheltie - I recognized it right away because I'm a sheltie owner myself. These dogs are hopelessly devoted to their owners and hate to be left alone. They live for the moment when their owner comes home, and follow them from room to room. These dogs will choose to sleep on a cold hard floor, as opposed to a nice soft couch if it means being nearer to their owners. It was somewhat disturbing to me to see that Daisy and Peter moved to the Cape without explaining what happened to Tubby. Perhaps that footage was edited out due to time constraints?Regarding the men in this movie, they are trying to win the love of Daisy and in retrospect it was in fact a chess game. One player (Dan) used his best moves and the other player (Peter) used his as well. Kudos to Peter for being cool, wise and astute restraining his emotions and remaining levelheaded in order to win his wife back. It was just killing him to pretend that he didn't care, but he knew that due to human nature being what it is, it was the best way to play this game. He won in the end and showed us all what he was made of.

Some movies age well, some don't. This movie has not aged well. Joan Crawford's acting is stagy, the story contrived, the story's mood gloomy and the film-noir style bleak and stark. Ms. Crawford was too old for the role. Daisy Kenyon is a young career woman, not a middle aged lady set in her ways. Also, the movie features two leading men, Dana Andrews and Henry Fonda which further weakens the story as Ms. Kenyon goes from one man, to the other, sometimes to both, then back to the other, etc. Real Hollywood pulp lacking substance, utterly vacuous, and above all dated. The movie is slow-paced and obviously filmed in a studio. Maybe this movie was popular in 1947 but in 2008 it's just another Hollywood curio that belongs on the shelf.

I've seen about a dozen Preminger films and this is my favorite. I wasn't expecting too much once the movie began because it seemed I had seen this all done before but Preminger's characters (as is usually the case) are much more realistic than typical Hollywood movies of this era. The characterization actually compares favorably to foreign films of the time, like for example Quai des Orfèvres from the same year; this movie could easily have been a French production. I'm not much a fan of Crawford or Fonda but this is probably the best I've seen Fonda; and Crawford was just fine. Dana Andrews is superb - probably his best movie! What made this movie for me was that I could relate to all three main characters - in many ways they are more ideas (or philosophies) than actual people but the odd thing is that the line was so blurred that even though I knew this was the case I still enjoyed them as people. What puts this above the other Premingers I've seen is the very tight script, the fast pacing, and three fully realized characters that came across not only as real but as themes in themselves. Add in a memorable supporting cast and everything just blends together to make a perfect concoction.