Plot
Daisy Kenyon (Joan Crawford) is a Manhattan commercial artist having an affair with an arrogant and overbearing but successful lawyer named Dan O'Mara (Dana Andrews), who is married and has two children. He breaks a date with Daisy one night and she goes out with a widowed war veteran named Peter Lapham (Henry Fonda).
O'Mara and his wife Lucille (Ruth Warrick) fight constantly: about his job, the upbringing of their two daughters, about his cheating. That same night, Dan turns up at New York's Stork Club with his wife and older daughter where Daisy and Peter are waiting to be seated. Daisy and Peter leave immediately. At the end of the date, Peter announces that he loves Daisy, and then leaves. Peter stands her up for their next date, but later he comes by unannounced and proposes to Daisy. She realizes that he is still in love with his late wife.
After a brief and hesitant courtship Daisy marries Peter, although she is still in love with Dan. Daisy supports Peter's post-war career. Peter is moody, sometimes quiet and withholding, sometimes wildly exuberant. Peter knows that Dan used to be in Daisy's life. Daisy feels like she's gotten over Dan. Dan's wife, finally fed up with his cheating, wants a divorce, using full custody of the children as leverage to hurt Dan.
Dan asks Peter and Daisy to allow him to reveal the full details of his former relationship with Daisy during the divorce proceedings. Peter states that he won't stand in Daisy's way, that when they first met he needed her, but that he doesn't anymore. He leaves. The trial begins, but Dan can see how much it's hurting Daisy, so he stops the proceedings. He asks Peter to sign divorce papers, even though Daisy did not request them.
Daisy goes away to think. She gets into a car accident. Dan and Peter are waiting for her at the cottage. She asks Dan to leave. Daisy realizes she no longer loves Dan and remains with Peter.
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“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
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“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
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