Daddy Long Legs (1955)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Jean Negulesco

Writers:

Phoebe Ephron (screenplay) and
Henry Ephron (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

5 May 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Musical | Romance

Plot:

On a trip to France, millionaire Jervis Pendelton sees an 18 year old girl in an orphanage. Enchanted with her...

Plot Keywords:

Dance | Sponsor | College | France | Letter

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 1 nomination

Cast

Fred Astaire	...	Jervis Pendleton III / John Smith
Leslie Caron	...	Julie Andre
Terry Moore	...	Linda Pendleton
Thelma Ritter	...	Alicia Pritchard
Fred Clark	...	Griggs
Charlotte Austin	...	Sally McBride
Larry Keating	...	Ambassador Alexander Williamson
Kathryn Givney	...	Gertrude Pendleton
Kelly Brown	...	Jimmy McBride
Ray Anthony	...	Himself (as Ray Anthony and his Orchestra)

Runtime:

126 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.55 : 1

Sound Mix:

4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Recording) (magnetic prints) | Mono (Western Electric Recording) (optical prints)

Certification:

Iceland:L | UK:U | Argentina:Atp | Australia:G | Chile:TE | Finland:S | USA:Approved (PCA #17247)

Filming Locations:

Andrew Carnegie Mansion - 2 East 91st Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

There was no soundtrack album of the Johnny Mercer score issued in 1955, but Fred Astaire and Ray Anthony compensated with commercial discs. Mr. Astaire's 45 on RCA Victor found him singing a ballad version of the Oscar-nominated "Something's Gotta Give," along with the peppy "Sluefoot," which in the film served as a vocal for The Pied Pipers, backed by the Anthony band. Fred's next recording of "Something's Gotta Give," taken at a brisker tempo, turned up on an LP called "Fred Astaire Today," released by Kapp in 1959. Returning to 1955, Ray Anthony and His Orchestra had in the marketplace a Capitol revamp of four songs from the picture: "Sluefoot," "Something's Gotta Give," "Dream" and "Thunderbird" (the last cut an instrumental composed by Mr. Anthony and George Williams).

Goofs:

Continuity: When Jervis is about to play the drums for Griggs, his brushes suddenly turn into sticks between shots.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Miracle (2007)

Soundtrack:

Thunderbird

Without CinemaScope, somethin's gotta give!

Fred Astaire, that supremely talented perfectionist, had a graceful and utterly charming partner in Leslie Caron in this oft-told fairy tale, so handsomely mounted by Twentieth Century Fox. It's an artifact of its era, with elements such as Ray Anthony's dance band for the prom scene; New York before it became overwhelmingly crass and vulgar; scenes set in a studio version of France when it was still permissible to admit a liking for things Gallic (which is now tantamount to treason - How absurd!); Terry Moore before she began claiming that she'd been secretly married to Howard Hughes; and Thelma Ritter allowed once more to almost steal the whole show with her slightly cynical brand of warmth. Sure there are things to object to: Larry Keating's merciless depiction of a pompous old fogey, eager to deflect Cupid's arrows; the somewhat overblown dream sequence (which did not benefit from Fred Astaire's ability to make a production number flow so matchlessly, as in the "Sluefoot" dance with Fred and Leslie, in which she's allowed to outshine all of her American schoolmates); and a score with only a couple of memorable numbers (i.e., "Dream" and the unforgettable "Somethin's Gotta Give!")

But overall you have to be more than demanding to find this anything but a delightful way to forget the world's harsher realities. The VHS version, with a DVD version probably not on the immediate horizon, no doubt does not duplicate Leon Shamroy's elegant CinemaScope framing. So be forewarned - this was made at a time when the hierarchy at Twentieth virtually commanded that all A-list productions take full advantage of the widescreen ratio and if that's lost, then you won't be seeing anything like what we saw in theaters during the theatrical release of this charmer.