Daddy Long Legs (film)
Daddy Long Legs is a
1955 Hollywood
musical comedy
film set in
France and stars
Fred Astaire,
Leslie Caron,
Fred Clark and
Thelma Ritter, with music and lyrics by
Johnny Mercer. The film was directed by
Jean Negulesco.
One of Astaire's personal favourites, largely due to the felicities of the script which, for once, directly addresses the complications inherent in a love affair between a young woman and a man thirty years her senior. However, the process of making it was marred by his wife's death from
lung cancer. Deeply traumatised, Astaire offered to pay the production expenses already incurred in order to quit the project, but then changed his mind.
The first in a consecutive series of three films set in France, he joins the fashion for French-themed musicals which had been established by ardent Francophile
Gene Kelly with
An American In Paris (
1951), and which had also featured Kelly's protege Caron.
His first film in
Cinemascope widescreen - which he was to parody later in the
Stereophonic Sound number from
Silk Stockings (
1957) - 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 adapts his choreography to the particular talents of his female partner, in this case
ballet. Even so, Caron ran into some problems in this her last dance musical, to the extent that Astaire mentions 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 herself puts this down to flaws in her early musical training. The final result, however, has a pleasing and appropriate dreamlike 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).
*
The 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 sing 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.
*
The Sluefoot: A boisterous and joyous partnered dance with Astaire and Caron with a lot of sharp leg movements in which, untypically, Astaire inserts a short and zany solo segment. The chorus join in towards the end.
*
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 which 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 criticised for its rather meaningless content and length (it lasts all of twelve minutes).
*
Dream: A short but much admired celebratory romantic partnered routine for Astaire and Caron with dreamlike twirling motifs and, unusually for Astaire, incorporating a kiss.
*
*Fred Astaire:
Steps in Time, 1959, multiple reprints.
*John Mueller:
Astaire Dancing - The Musical Films of Fred Astaire, Knopf 1985, ISBN 0394516540
