Catharina_Sweden I loved the girls' novel "Daddy Long-legs" when I was a girl, and it was fun to see a movie made of it now. It is a charming story, somehow the utmost dream for a poor and lonely girl, so it ought to be impossible to make a fail of it! I loved the dancing scenes very much, as almost always when Fred Astaire is at it... But I was a little disturbed with the two main actors despite of that. First of all the age difference was much too big. I do not find it right that a 56-year old actor - who looks his age - should play a man who marries a college girl. Daddy Long-legs in the novel was not this old either. I cannot remember now if his age was ever spelled out, but he certainly was not 56. It feels a little like cradle-robbing... I have often wondered why Hollywood in the 1940:s and 50:s so often paired off young women with men 30 years their seniors or even more..? I am afraid that also struck some kind of weird standard in society at large. I mean: a movie in which the leading man was 24 and the leading lady 56 would have been an impossibility!Secondly, I did not like Leslie Caron as the orphanage girl. She was a wonderful dancer and had a good body for dancing, no doubt about that! But I did not like her face, her expression or her "aura". She was not beautiful enough for the role, and there was also something cheeky, tomboyish and even clownish over her, that the main character of the girls' novel did not have.Some actors like Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton, as they were when they played Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester - and with no bigger age difference than 18 or 20 years at most - ought to have played Daddy Long-legs and the orphanage girl! I was also put off with the very long dance scene towards the end, which should take place in a bar in Rio or something, with sailors. It was too blatantly erotic, and Leslie Caron also showed much too much of her body. I think this was very unsuitable in a screen adaption of a very sweet and innocent girls' novel! I would not want my young daughter to watch that scene! Also, it had nothing whatsoever to do with the story. The movie was also a little too long, and if that long scene had been cut the length would have been perfect!With all these negative things said, I was suddenly inspired to find a dancing school and pick up my dancing again! That is good marks for a dance movie! :-)

lzf0 Yes, Fred Astaire is in a scene with two Harry Mortons from the Burns and Allen Show: Fred Clark and Larry Keating. All we needed was Hal March and Johnny Brown! Now that the trivia is out of the way, how could Johnny Mercer's score have been so butchered in this film? The only song properly presented is "Something's Got to Give". It became an instant standard. In his tribute album to Fred Astaire, it is the only contemporary song recorded by Mel Torme. The rest of the songs came from the 1930s. With this said, all of the other songs in the film are given the short shift. Astaire's opening song "The History of the Beat" is truncated to one stanza. Mercer's lyrics are extremely witty, but are nowhere to be found in the film. "C-A-T Spells Cat" is buried under dialogue and what can be heard is butchered by Leslie Caron's out of tune singing. Where was Carole Richards or Betty Wand when you needed one of them? The beautiful theme song, "Daddy Long Legs" is ruined by having it performed by an off-screen choir. The lyrics can hardly be understood. Maybe they tried having Leslie Caron sing it, but it didn't work. "Welcome, Egghead" is destroyed by poor staging and truncation. "Sluefoot" almost works. Had Astaire sung it in the film as he did on the recording, it may have become a standard. The Skyliners handle the vocal and it is almost lost to the superb dance that follows. "Texas Romp and Square Dance" is part of a ballet dream sequence and it probably wasn't meant to stand out in the first place. Two more songs written for Astaire by Johnny Mercer, "Dancing Through Life" and "I Never Knew" were cut from the film. Even the Mercer standard "Dream" is given sub-standard treatment. Astaire and Caron perform a pleasant dance to it, but where is Astaire's vocal. It is sung by that off-screen choir, who hid the title song. The two Roland Petit ballet pieces show Caron off well, but Astaire is somewhat out of his element. Alex North's ballet music is unmemorable. The film is a bit long and a bit over-plotted and there are some who probably find the idea of the film disagreeable. To me, it's a sweetly innocent story that needed less dialogue and better presentations of the Mercer songs.

didi-5 'Daddy Long-Legs', previously filmed silent with Mary Pickford and once more in the 1930s, gets the musical treatment here as the story of the millionaire and the orphan he sponsors gets a Technicolor, Cinemascope, Johnny Mercer update.Fred Astaire, at 55, is a little old for his role as stick-in-the-mud business whizz Jervis Pendleton, but hey, this is Hollywood. And his interest in, and subsequent wooing of, the French girl Julie Andre (played with charm and wit by Leslie Caron) is helped a lot by the fact that the two stars do not actually share screen time until nearly halfway through the film! With scintillating choreography for both Astaire and Caron, those wonderful songs, and support from Fred Clark, Thelma Ritter, and Terry Moore, 'Daddy Long Legs' is an excellent musical just balancing on the cusp of classic musical vs rock n roll.

writers_reign I've never been much of an admirer of Lesley Caron but it's undeniable that she does possess the required ingenuousness for the role of an orphan doubling as Cinderella. Jean Webster's novel has been adapted many times not least as a stage Musical, Love From Judy, in the late forties. The natural warmth, charm and grace of Fred Astaire have seldom been better displayed, grace under pressure if you will given that his wife had died only recently. We don't hear enough of Johnny Mercer's great ballad Dream (which was not written for the film) but we do get Something's Gotta Give. As usual Fred dances so effortlessly that you wonder why the second-stringers like Kelly, Daily, Nelson etc even bother. Thelma Ritter could have been given a little more but she clicks with the little she does get and all in all this is a minor charmer.