Daddy Long Legs (MGM) 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. MGM logo Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or MGM, is a large media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of cinema and television programs. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1955 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search The musical film is a film genre that features songs, sung by the actors, interwoven into the narrative. ... Jump to: navigation, search Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ... Jump to: navigation, search Fred Astaire Fred Astaire (May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987), born Frederick Austerlitz in Omaha, Nebraska, was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. ... Leslie Caron (b. ... Frederick Leonard Clark (March 19, 1914 – December 5, 1968) was an American film actor. ... Thelma Ritter Thelma Ritter (February 14, 1902 – February 4, 1969) was an American character actress of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. ... Johnny Mercer (November 18, 1909 - June 25, 1976) was a pop music composer. ... Jean Negulesco (Craiova, Romania, February 26, 1900–July 18, 1993), also known as Jean Negulescu, was a Romanian-born American film director. ...

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. Jump to: navigation, search The incidence of lung cancer is highly correlated with smoking. ...

The first in Astaire's 1950's French Trilogy, he joins the fashion for musicals set in France which had been established by ardent Francophile Gene Kelly with An American In Paris (1951), and which had also featured Kelly's protege Caron. Gene Kelly (1912-1996) Eugene Curran Kelly, born on August 23, 1912, and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was an Irish-American dancer, actor, singer, director, and choreographer. ... An American in Paris is a symphonic composition by American composer George Gershwin which debuted in 1928. ...

Key songs/dance routines:

His first film in Cinemascope widescreen - which he was to parody later in the Stereophonic Sound number from Silk Stockings - 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). Jump to: navigation, search Cinemascope, or more strictly CinemaScope, was a widescreen movie format used from 1953 to 1967. ... Silk Stockings was a 1954 musical composed by Cole Porter, based upon Ninotchka. ... Roland Petit (January 13, 1924) is a French choreographer and dancer born in Villemomble near Paris, France. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Waltz of the Snowflakes from Tchaikovskys The Nutcracker Ballet is the name given to a specific dance form and technique. ... The title Shall We Dance? may refer to one of the following. ...

• 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, and the Drum Crazy number from Easter Parade, 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.

A Damsel in Distress (RKO) is a 1937 English-themed Hollywood musical comedy film starring Fred Astaire, Joan Fontaine, George Burns and Gracie Allen, with a screenplay by P.G. Plum Wodehouse based on his novel, music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, and directed by George Stevens. ... Easter Parade is a 1948 musical film starring Fred Astaire and Judy Garland. ... Square dance is a folk dance for four couples that was first described in 17th century England but was also quite common in France and throughout Europe, but which has become associated with the United States of America due to its historic development in that country. ... Tango may refer to: Tango (dance) Tango music Tangos, a type of flamenco Tango Province, an old province of Japan. ... The Great American Songbook is an informal term referring to a period of American popular music songwriting that took place between the 1930s and 1950s. ...

External links:

• Daddy Long Legs at the Internet Movie Database

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References

Fred Astaire: Steps in Time, 1959, multiple reprints.

John Mueller: Astaire Dancing - The Musical Films of Fred Astaire, Knopf 1985, ISBN 0394516540