Peggy Cummins and her glitzy family melodrama My Daughter Joy

Peggy Cummins saw tremendous highs and lows throughout her film career. In 1945 she was whisked off to Hollywood and cast in the hotly anticipated screen adaptation of Forever Amber, only to be replaced by Linda Darnell during pre-production. Twentieth Century-Fox felt that Cummins looked too young to play the eponymous courtesan, but the studio missed a trick – Cummins’ trump card was that her youthful appearance and petite frame concealed a fierce talent and an electric screen presence.

Cummins, who was born 100 years ago on 18 December 1925, has secured a place in cinemagoers’ hearts largely through three films: Joseph H. Lewis’s low-budget noir Gun Crazy (1950), Jacques Tourneur’s chilling supernatural tale Night of the Demon (1957) and Cy Endfield’s trucking crime drama Hell Drivers (1957).

But beyond these highlights is a raft of lesser-known titles, some difficult to see, in which she gave equally compelling performances. Her first film, Dr O’Dowd (1940), is missing, while wartime drama Welcome Mr Washington (1944) only found its way into the BFI National Archive quite recently. The three films she made with director Gregory Ratoff are also fairly obscure. Ratoff took her under his wing and encouraged her Hollywood career, firstly with the foggy London murder mystery Moss Rose, showing in tribute to Cummins at BFI Southbank on 6 January. The other two Ratoff productions brought her back to England, with My Daughter Joy seeing her cast as Georgette, the daughter of Edward G. Robinson’s fanatical mogul who is eventually pushed over the edge by his own greed and ambition.

My Daughter Joy was based on Irène Némirovsky’s 1929 novel David Golder, first adapted for the screen in France for Julien Duvivier’s 1931 film starring Harry Baur. The author’s work was little-known until her description of life in Nazi-occupied France, La Suite française, was discovered and posthumously published. David Golder relates the tale of a Jewish businessman who pursues profit at the expense of his personal relationships.

In his autobiography, Edward G. Robinson had little to say about My Daughter Joy. “Late in 1949,” he wrote, “I went to London to make a picture in England. There it was called My Daughter Joy. In this country it was called Operation X. In either country it should have been called unspeakable.” 

Robinson’s unfairly dismissive view may be attributable to the fact that he was going through a particularly difficult time. His support for writer Dalton Trumbo had got him on the wrong side of the communist witch hunts in Hollywood and he was finding it increasingly difficult to get work. Ratoff stepped in to help him, inviting him to come to Europe to star in the film, which he was producing and directing under the aegis of London Films.

The British press eagerly heralded Robinson’s arrival and he was photographed signing an autograph for Frances Farmer at London airport and surveying the city from the balcony of his hotel. However, most of that summer of 1949 was spent filming on the continent, both in Paris and at Bordighera near San Remo, where Ratoff discovered the magnificent modern villa of an Italian senator, which was perfect as Constantin’s luxury home. The beautiful Italian coastline was perhaps responsible for the location shoot extending to 12 weeks, presumably far longer than the allotted schedule.

This created problems for the filming of the interiors, as Ratoff returned in September to find all the stages at Shepperton in use. So the cast fetched up at Ealing Studios where expert technicians including set designer André Andrejew and cinematographer Georges Périnal worked their magic.

Playing a go-getting businessman wasn’t exactly a departure for Robinson, and Constantin’s downfall could almost be regarded as the potential fate of his character in his first British film, Thunder in the City. Constantin is a complex figure, so obsessed with maintaining his wealth and position that he neglects his family. He lavishes his daughter Georgette with cars and fur coats but can’t nurture her emotionally. He plots to marry her off to a wealthy sultan in order to save his business. But she falls for a young journalist, played by Richard Greene, who is investigating Constantin’s business practices, and the mogul ends up a broken man when he discovers the terrible secret about his beloved child.

While Némirovksy’s novel focuses on the innermost thoughts and feelings of the elderly magnate, the film centres on the effect that his desire for wealth has on her and his long suffering wife. Hollywood star Constance Bennett was originally announced as playing the latter role but was replaced quite late on by British actress Nora Swinburne.

In the novel, the daughter is superficially drawn, coming across as merely spoiled and selfish. While that aspect of the character is apparent in the film, the casting of Cummins in the role raises it above caricature. She injects honesty and compassion into it; as one critic wrote: “Seldom has a girl had to play a more irritating character than Peggy Cummins…To her credit, she manages to establish sympathy for the… artificial character given her by the script.” Cummins’ naturalness and easy grace make a potentially superficial and flimsy character solid and convincing.

The film was skewed more towards a female audience by this focus and the inclusion of what the press called a “series of fashion displays that provide a feast for feminine eyes”. Georgette drives an Alfa Romeo and wears mink at breakfast, displays that no doubt gave post-war audiences pleasing glimpses of austerity-free life. Cummins had no difficulty looking the part and the British press felt the role suited her much better than her gun-toting bank robber in Gun Crazy.

She had just finished shooting this B-picture before leaving for England, though Gun Crazy was not released in the UK until after My Daughter Joy, which opened in British cinemas in June 1950. Neither film reignited her Hollywood career and in December 1950 she got married and settled down to family life in England, though she continued to appear on British screens on and off until the mid-1960s.

In her latter years, she was much in demand and delighted audiences by introducing BFI restorations of Night of the Demon and Hell Drivers. However, it was Gun Crazy that kept her in the limelight and she was invited to America several times to discuss this classic noir, the power of which comes largely from her exceptional performance. But rarely did she get such opportunities and producers failed to exploit this seemingly demure fireball with the husky voice and no-nonsense approach. “I never believe in arguing or becoming temperamental,” she told Picturegoer. “One of the most valuable assets a player can have is good manners.”

Cummins was vivacious, with a dry sense of humour and a real sense of mischief that can often be spotted on screen as a twinkle in her eye. As an actor she combined professionalism with an ability not to take herself or the business too seriously. She played both drama and comedy with an easy lightness and sincerity that makes even her less successful films worth watching. My Daughter Joy gave her the rare chance to show the glamorous side of an actress too often cast as the girl next door.

The BFI National Archive holds a 35mm print of My Daughter Joy, available to view via our research viewing service.