Expert: Mel - 3/25/2011

Question
I saw this film somewhere between 1947 and 1954.  The first scene made an indelible impression on me.  It showed the feet of a little girl with a daisy between her toes.  She was sitting in the pew of what I recall was a bombed out church, and her father was preaching.  No one else was in the church.  I think the father was crazed from the war. He dies and the girl is left alone.  A man finds the girl and adopts her.  There is a dog (Rin tin tin?) and the girl's life is later threatened by Rocky Mountain spotted fever.  That's about all I remember.  I thought it starred Margaret O'Brien, but I can't find a film of hers that fits the description,  I think it was in black and white.    Thanks.

Answer
Hello Marielena,

That's the 1947 film called "Driftwood". It starred Dean Jagger, Ruth Warrick, Walter Brennan, Charlotte Greenwood, and the little girl, Jenny was played by an eight-years-old Natalie Wood (who does resemble Margaret O'Brien somewhat). The advertising poster at the time carried the tagline, "Everybody Goes For DAISY-TOES!"

STORY OUTLINE:
Six-year-old Jenny rescues a collie dog, the only survivor of a plane wreck. A tag on the dog's neck states that it is en route to a medical laboratory where its blood will be used for spotted fever vaccine. Dr. Steven Webster meets both Jenny and the dog and "adopts" them both. His fiancée Susan isn't too fond of either the girl or the dog. Webster wants to get a hospital for the town but he is suppressed by the town mayor. In the arguments that follow, Webster's lab is wrecked and ticks infected with spotted fever escape. The town is in a panic and all want to be vaccinated. Jenny is infected and is about to die.......

Have a look here......  http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800316040/info


Glad to be of help. Cheers........Mel.