Daddy Long Legs (1955 film)

Daddy Long Legs (1955) is a Hollywood musical comedy film set in France, New York City, and the fictional college town of Walston, Massachusetts. The film was directed by Jean Negulesco, and stars Fred Astaire, Leslie Caron, Terry Moore, Fred Clark, and Thelma Ritter, with music and lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The screenplay was written by Phoebe Ephron and Henry Ephron, loosely based on the 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster.

Daddy Long Legs
Directed byJean Negulesco
Produced bySamuel G. Engel
Written byHenry Ephron
Phoebe Ephron
Based onDaddy-Long-Legs
1912 novel
1914 play
by Jean Webster
Starring
Music by
CinematographyLeon Shamroy
Edited byWilliam H. Reynolds
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
May 4, 1955 (1955-05-04)
Running time
126 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$2.6 million[1]
Box office$2.5 million (US rentals)[2]

This was the first of three consecutive Astaire films set in France or with a French theme (the others being Funny Face and Silk Stockings), following the fashion for French-themed musicals established by ardent Francophile Gene Kelly with An American in Paris (1951), which also featured Kelly's protégée Caron. Like The Band Wagon, Daddy Long Legs did only moderately well at the box office.

Plot summary

Wealthy American Jervis Pendleton III (Fred Astaire) has a chance encounter at a French orphanage with a cheerful 18-year-old resident, Julie Andre (Leslie Caron). He anonymously pays for her education at a New England college. She writes letters to her mysterious benefactor regularly, but he never writes back. Her nickname for him, Daddy Long Legs, is taken from the description of him given to Andre by some of her fellow orphans who see his shadow as he leaves their building.

Several years later, he visits her at school, still concealing his identity. Despite their large age difference, they fall in love.

Cast

Production

20th Century Fox bought the rights to Jean Webster's original Daddy Long Legs in 1931, releasing two versions of the film, one starring Janet Gaynor and one with Shirley Temple.[3]

Producer Darryl F. Zanuck envisioned a remake, this time seeking to star singer-actress Mitzi Gaynor. The project would not be realized until Zanuck had met Fred Astaire, and was inspired to make Daddy Long Legs a musical film. While Zanuck still envisioned Gaynor for the main female role, Astaire insisted on casting actress and dancer Leslie Caron. Caron was then loaned to Fox by MGM, whom Caron was still under contract.[4]

Production was halted in July, 1954, as Astaire's wife Phyllis became more ill from lung cancer. She passed away in September, putting Astaire in a state of grief and talling his work on the film. Although replacements were being sought for Astaire's role as too much money had been spent on the production already, he resumed and completed his work on the film despite his recent tragedy.[5]

Key songs/dance routines

As his first film in Cinemascope widescreen – which he was to parody later in the "Stereophonic Sound" number from Silk Stockings (1957) - Daddy Long legs provided him the opportunity to explore the additional space available, with the help of his assistant choreographer Dave Robel. Roland Petit designed the much-maligned "Nightmare Ballet" number. As usual, Astaire adapted his choreography to the particular strengths of his partner, in this case ballet. Even so, Caron ran into some problems in this, her last dance musical, to the extent that Astaire mentioned in his biography that "one day at rehearsals I asked her to listen extra carefully to the music, so as to keep in time". Caron puts this down to flaws in her early musical training. The final result, however, has a pleasing and appropriate dream-like quality. In this respect, it is a more successful attempt to integrate ballet into his dance routines than his previous effort in Shall We Dance (1937).

  • "History of the Beat": An Astaire song-and-dance solo using drumsticks performed in an office environment. While the use of drumsticks recalls the Nice Work If You Can Get It routine from A Damsel in Distress (1937), and the Drum Crazy number from Easter Parade (1948), it is a pale shadow of either, and, given that this was the first number to be filmed, some commentators have speculated that it was affected by Astaire's grief at his wife's death.
  • "Daddy Long Legs": An off-screen female chorus sings this attractive number while Caron muses fondly at a blackboard cartoon sketch of Astaire.
  • "Daydream Sequence": Astaire appears in three guises: A Texan, an international playboy, and a guardian angel based on images of him described in letters from Caron. As a Texan he performs a comic gallumphing square dance routine to a short song dubbed for him by Thurl Ravenscroft - the only time in his career that Astaire's voice was dubbed. As an international playboy he tangoes his way through a flock of women, one of whom is Barrie Chase - who was later to be his dance partner in all of his television specials from 1958-1968. The third routine is a particularly attractive and gentle romantic partnered dance with Caron, where she performs graceful ballet steps while Astaire glides admiringly around her.
  • "Sluefoot": A boisterous and joyous partnered dance with Astaire and Caron with a lot of sharp leg movements in which, atypically, Astaire inserts a short and zany solo segment. The chorus join in toward the end. The band leader in this scene is Ray Anthony.
  • "Something's Gotta Give": Astaire was deeply grateful to his friend Mercer for composing this now famous standard as he felt the film sorely lacked a strong popular song. In the romantic partnered routine that follows Astaire's rendition of the song, he exploits—albeit reluctantly—the wide lateral spaces afforded by the Cinemascope format. While the routine has many attractive qualities and the ending is particularly fine, some commentators have detected a certain stiffness in Caron, especially in her upper body.
  • "Nightmare Ballet": A solo routine for Caron frequently criticized for its rather meaningless content and length (it lasts all of 12 minutes).
  • "Dream": A short but much admired celebratory romantic partnered routine for Astaire and Caron with dream-like twirling motifs and, unusually for Astaire, incorporating a kiss.

Awards and honors

Daddy Long Legs was nominated for the Academy Awards for:[6]

The film was also nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical (Phoebe Ephron, Henry Ephron).

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

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References
  1. Solomon, Aubrey. Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series). Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-8108-4244-1. p249
  2. 'The Top Box-Office Hits of 1955', Variety Weekly, January 25, 1956
  3. "Classic Movie Guide: From the Silent Era Through 1965". Retrieved 2015-09-29.
  4. "Turner Classic Movies: Daddy Long Legs". Turner Classic Movies.
  5. "Jean Negulesco: The Life and Films". Jean Negulesco. Retrieved 2017-07-28.
  6. "NY Times: Daddy Long Legs". NY Times. Retrieved 2008-12-22.
  7. "AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  8. "AFI's Greatest Movie Musicals Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  • Fred Astaire: Steps in Time, 1959, multiple reprints.
  • John Mueller: Astaire Dancing – The Musical Films of Fred Astaire, Knopf 1985, ISBN 0-394-51654-0
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