Daisy Miller

Daisy Miller is a 1974 American drama film produced and directed by Peter Bogdanovich, and starring Cybill Shepherd in the title role. The screenplay by Frederic Raphael is based on the 1878 novella of the same title by Henry James. The lavish period costumes and sets were done by Ferdinando Scarfiotti, Mariolina Bono and John Furniss. Bogdanovich later said he wished he had not made the film, claiming "It's a good picture, there's nothing wrong with it", but said "I knew when we were making it that it wasn't commercial" and "if I had been smart about things... I would not have done something so completely uncommercial." He says the film's financial failure "threw the studio's confidence in me, that I would do a picture like that instead of thinking only in terms of box office" and "helped fuck up the next two pictures... they came out not the way I wanted." Plot synopsis The title character is a beautiful, flirtatious, nouveau riche young American visiting a Swiss spa with her nervously timid, talkative mother and spoiled, xenophobic younger brother Randolph. There she meets upper class expatriate American Frederick Winterbourne, who is warned about her reckless ways with men by his dowager aunt Mrs. Costello. When the two are reunited in Rome, Winterbourne tries to convince Daisy that her keeping company with suave Italian Mr. Giovanelli, who has no status among the locals, will destroy her reputation with the expatriates, including socialite Mrs. Walker, who is offended by her behavior and vocal about her disapproval. Daisy is too carelessly naive to take either of them seriously.