"Daisy, Daisy (TV play)"
Playwrights '56 episode
Episode no.Season 1
Episode 5
Directed byArthur Penn
Teleplay bySumner Locke Elliott
Produced byFred Coe
Original air dateNovember 22, 1955 (1955-11-22)
Running time60 mins
Guest appearances
  • Tom Ewell as William Bingham
  • Jane Wyatt as Glenda Bingham
  • Al Checco as Trigger Fogel
  • Agnes Doyle as Mrs. Mays
  • Edith Meiser as Mother-in-law
  • Jane Moultrie as Rosy Sedgewick
  • James Reese as Adrian Terhune
  • Lou Vernon as Mr. Smith

Daisy, Daisy is a 1955 American television play by Sumner Locke Elliott that aired as an episode of Playwrights '56. It was based on the Ern Malley hoax making the play one of the few works on American television at the time to draw inspiration from Australian culture.[1]

Plot

William Bingham is an unsuccessful "artistic" writer married to Glenda, who loves best sellers.

Willie spends eight hours one night writing a cliche-ridden book. It is meant to be the confessions of a 17-year-old Australian girl named Daisy Smith who has recently died.

The book is accepted by a publisher and becomes a best seller.

Glenda becomes convinced that William knew a Daisy Smith when he was a GI in Australia. Then Albert Smith turns up claiming to be Daisy's father.

Production

It was Tom Ewell's first live television play in three years.[2]

Sumner Locke Elliott was Australian and based the script on the Ern Malley hoax. The writer had a generally excellent relationship with Fred Coe. However he says he had his only argument with the producer over casting during the making of this play. Elliott said comedy was not Coe's "forte" and the play was a "mess".[3]

Reception

Variety said "Starting off with a promising but familiar premise" Elliott "had the choice of either developing that premise logically but risking the problem of an overfamiliar theme, or developing in an offbeat direction and making the outcome of the play a non-sequitur. He chose the latter, and not only did the concluding portion not follow the promise of the beginning but became rather ponderous and dull."[4]

References

  1. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (September 11, 2022). "Forgotten Australian TV Plays: Australia on US TV – Sumner Locke Elliott's Wicked is the Vine and The Crater". Filmink.
  2. ↑ "Tom Ewell gets 'Daisy' for live TV 'comeback'". The Indianapolis Star. 22 November 1955. p. 21.
  3. ↑ "Sumner Locke Elliott interviewed by Hazel de Berg in the Hazel de Berg collection [sound recording]". National Library of Australia. 5 May 1970.
  4. ↑ "Daisy, Daisy review". Variety. 30 November 1955. p. 40.
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