CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

My Daughter Joy

1950 film by Gregory Ratoff

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ12126382
Source-derived summary

My Daughter Joy is a 1950 British drama film directed by Gregory Ratoff and starring Edward G. Robinson, Peggy Cummins and Richard Greene. It was written by Robert Thoeren and Wiliam Rose. The screenplay concerns a millionaire who spoils his only daughter, but has a strained relationship with his wife.

The film is a loose adaptation of the 1929 novel David Golder by Irène Némirovsky, which had previously been made into in the 1931 French film of the same title. It was released in the United States by Columbia Pictures.

Plot

George Constantin is a financier, a self-made man who started as a shoeshine boy and is now a financial genius. He dotes on his only daughter Georgette, known as Joy. She falls for a young American reporter who writes an exposé of her father's business affairs. Constantin subsequently discovers that Joy is not really his daughter, and he becomes insane.

Constantin's business partners,Mc Tavish and Fogarty,are extremely nervous about the long-shot business deal they have been backing with their millions--which depends solely on the opinions of one eccentric scientist,Professor Keval.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “My Daughter Joy” is 1950 film by Gregory Ratoff. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Daughter, film and Gregory, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1950, 1929, 1931—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1950-01-01. For this dossier, Daughter, film and Gregory is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1950 film by Gregory Ratoff” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12126382. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1950, 1929 and 1931.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “My Daughter Joy”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow My Daughter Joy primary sources, My Daughter Joy archive and Daughter research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “My Daughter Joy”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from My Daughter Joy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.