Daisy Kenyon

Feminist Elizabeth Janeway’s 1945 novel—set on the cusp of the US entry into World War II—is peopled with characters who are “too God-damn articulate” but make great reading. That’s how Joan Crawford’s Daisy Kenyon comes to be as smart as she is—an amateur psychoanalyst at times—and Henry Fonda’s Pete, “a south by north character,” pessimistic and poetic by turns. Don’t wait for a crime. The melodrama’s noir credentials come from its now-postwar setting, where Daisy’s lover Dana Andrews seeks political redemption and her husband, Pete, a vet’s subtle revenge; and from an unforgiving slash of studio light across Crawford’s never lyin’ eyes.