She may not know if Madame Web will be any good, but Dakota Johnson is certain that today’s streaming distributors are not ony scared of their own shadows but slow on the pickup.

“It’s Spelled Daddy-o,” posted on 9.10.23:

The more I read about Christy Hall‘s Daddio, the sorrier I am that I ducked it in Telluride. I was especially persuaded by Todd McCarthy’s Deadline review. I’m very much looking forward to the next viewing opportunity.

Pic is a two-hander about a grizzled New York City cab driver named Clark (Sean Penn) covering the verbal and cultural waterfront with his blonde 30something passenger (Dakota Johnson).

I should admit there was a specific reason why I didn’t see Daddio last week. It was because of the dopey Millennial spelling. If it had been spelled right I would have gone in a heartbeat.

Daddy-o is a beatnik anachronism. The root term (duhh) is “daddy” with a “y”. Daddio is for dingleberries.

Among the leather jacket-wearing, Marlon Brando wannabe set in the 1950s “hey, dad” was a term of respectful affection…a cool familiarism.

In the 1960 jukebox tune “Alley Oop” (written in ’57, released in ’60) the phrase “king of the jungle jive” is rhymed with “ride daddy ride.”

In Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks (’61) Karl Malden‘s character is named “Dad” Longworth — a nickname that ignores western culture in deference to ’50s be-bop sensibilities.

In Stephen Sondheim‘s lyrics for “Cool,” the West Side Story song, it’s spelled “daddy-o”

In the real-deal world of rebellious Rebel Without A Cause-era attitudes, there were never any “daddios.” It was daddy-o or nothing.