Daddy Long Legs

Jean Webster's novel Daddy Long Legs has certainly been popular enough ever since it was written in 1912. First a play the following year that starred a young Ruth Chatterton, than film versions with Mary Pickford as a silent and an early sound film starring Janet Gaynor. There was even a Dutch language version in the Thirties and a couple of years back South Korea filmed a version of the story. Still the best known one is the one with the singing and dancing of Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron.

Johnny Mercer who can well lay claim to being the greatest lyricist America ever produced occasionally wrote the music as well for some songs, an example being I'm An Old Cowhand. Another one he did both music and lyrics for is Dream which was interpolated into this otherwise original score and sung by the Pied Pipers. Mercer did music and lyrics for the rest of the score as well which included the Oscar nominated Something's Gotta Give for Best Song. It lost in 1955 to Love Is A Many Splendored Thing.

I've got a feeling that Jean Webster took as her inspiration for the Daddy Long Legs Story the marriage of Grover Cleveland. The future President of the United States was practicing law in Buffalo, New York when his law partner, one Oscar Folsom, was killed in a carriage accident leaving a widow and small daughter. Cleveland took over the guardianship and raised young Frances Folsom and when he was president in his first term he married young Ms. Folsom when she came of age in the White House.

In this updating of the story, Fred Astaire is a millionaire diplomat on a trade mission to France after World War II. The car breaks down near an orphanage and while there spots and becomes enchanted with young Leslie Caron. He becomes her unseen benefactor, putting her through college in America and she calls him, Daddy Long Legs. Of course like the Clevelands the March/July romance commences.

Daddy Long Legs gave Darryl Zanuck an opportunity to try and respond to MGM's classic ballet in An American In Paris, where not coincidentally Leslie Caron danced with Gene Kelly. In an incredible generosity of spirit it's not Fred who dances, but Caron. In her fantasy Astaire just ambles through. It's a nice number but doesn't come close to what Kelly achieved. It's interesting to speculate what might have happened had Fred danced here.

Thelma Ritter has some nice lines herself as the usual wisecracking girl Friday and for once Fred Clark is a good guy as Astaire's factotum. That must have been a welcome change for him.

If you should be with your beloved watching Daddy Long Legs, you can bet as sure as you live, Something's Gotta Give, Something's Gotta Give, Something's Gotta Give.

Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron were such marvelous dancing partners in 1955's Daddy Longlegs.

The story line is wonderful. Astaire "adopts" a young Parisian orphan and pays for her college tuition. Throughout the years, she writes in gratitude but he chooses to ignore the letters.

Fred Clark and Thelma Ritter, two veteran movie pros, gave terrific support as workers under Astaire. The sentimental Ritter, as Alice, is able to bring the two together and the film takes on a new meaning until Caron discovers that Astaire has been her benefactor. As romance blossoms, we're happy to see that Clark and Ritter have romantic designs on each other as well.

The dance sequences have never been better. Both Astaire and Carone show their gracefulness. Fred even knew how to put-over "Something's Got To 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.

Leslie Caron elevates this film with her charm, her pleasant French accent and innocence. The movie also is bright and colorful and features a lot of dance with The Master: Fred Astaire. For me, the bad side was it wasn't the kind of dancing from Astaire that I always liked: tap. For those who prefer the '50s dance style, this movie will be super.

Caron also does a few ballet numbers. She plays an 18-year-old which was a little unrealistic because she doesn't look that young, although I think she was only around 24. Astaire, even though he was in his mid '50s, the same year as the movie, was still agile and very talented.

The dialog is very dated, especially with the college girls of the day. Even though I don't own it, I am glad to see this is out on DVD. The formatted-to-TV VHS picture cuts off a lot of the colorful dance scenery, so the disc is a "must" over the tape.

I tried playing the drums once. I poked an eye out. Lucky for me it wasn't my own eye. Still, that catastrophic experience told me that I should leave the drumkit to the pros. Neil Peart, John Bonham, and Fred Astaire. Yes. Fred Astaire.

Drum fans, you have GOT to check out the opening number where Fred sings and dances while playing the drums (and he's really playing, too). It's one of those overlooked gems like his golf routine in "Carefree" (1938) where he does a little tap whilst driving a few 300-yarders. Innovative dance routines like these are what made Fred Astaire so great and what make his movies so entertaining.

I'm not really a Fred Astaire Fan; in fact, "Daddy Long Legs" and "Carefree" are the only two films of his that I've seen. But if they're any indication, I'm going to start hunting for more. I watched "Daddy Long Legs" mainly because I really enjoyed the 2005 Korean remake "Kidari ajeossi" (which is not a musical). Now that I've seen the original, I appreciate both films.

My only gripe with this film is that it didn't seem to get personal enough. We rarely get any closeups of the stars, which is a crime considering how stunningly beautiful the leading lady Leslie Caron is. But if it's any consolation, she does a lot of twirls, and each time she does it, we see her dress fly up. Yeah babay! Spin! SPIN!! Oh sorry, I got carried away there. Well, now that I've talked about drums, Korean flicks and spinners, maybe I should talk about the actual film. Naah.